My Book Signing for “Aprils and Decembers”!
PC: Tina Lovett Photography, 2016
On January 23rd, I was honored to be the Guest Author at our local Barnes and Noble store where the turnout for my book signing for “Aprils and Decembers” was one of the most successful in the store’s history. I am so grateful to everyone! Family, friends, fans, readers, coworkers and newcomers showed up to support my writing. I am truly overwhelmed.
For all the love and support you’ve shown me, thank you.
XO, DQ
Photos from my book signing:
Towanda! My Favorite Female Authors
Photo Credit: Instagram @samanthagrander.
Southern women writing about the Southern things that all Southerners understand. Southern characters who bring memories and scents and nostalgia flooding to the surface of our recollections. What more can a person hope for, being a reader, than to be taken somewhere we’ve already been before, a place we know and remember fondly? To return to a time and place when something so wonderful happened, with people we don’t think about nearly enough…well that’s what makes a really good book.
I am partial to Southern female writers, but the authors I admire come from all over, and I am a better writer myself having read about places in America that I’m not familiar with. When I reflect on the kinds of books I love the most and the writers I most admire, I have worked it out quite simply… Read more
The Three Books That Made Me Want to Be a Writer
So these are my favorite books, ever. If you are receptive to sincere recommendations, pick one of these. You won’t regret it.
Little Altars Everywhere by Rebecca Wells (home state: Louisiana!) is THE short story that made me want to be a writer. When Wiletta recalled the night Vivi beat her children with a belt, I found myself hurling (hurling!!!) the book across the room because I couldn’t imagine bearing that kind of guilt. “Sweet Jesus, I seen they whole lives in front of them, how they would be when they was grown. I seen it all just by lookin at them….and it froze my blood.” That’s what a good book does…it affects you visibly, emotionally, and psychologically. As a writer myself, the best I can hope to do is simply write something that makes someone say, “Wow, she’s been through the same thing I have.” This, my friends, is the book that inspired that little voice in my head to say, “You need to tell your story too, Dawn,” and that story became my first book. You’ve likely heard of Wells’ other, more famous work, Divine Secrets of the Yaya Sisterhood, and it is also a favorite, but make no mistake, Altars changed me. Read more
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