Tag: laurel hightower

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I just had a wonderful weekend! It started with heavy fog and me driving my least favorite freeway—I-57—and the fog didn’t lift until I was almost to Indiana.

I attended the Scarelastic Book Fair at Scarlet Lane Brewing Company in McCordsville, hosted by author and master brewer Josh Hull. What a great time! A horror-themed brewery, many favorite authors, spent way too much on books (including one I now have two of, both signed…how could I forget??)

Above is most of what I bought. I snagged a few more right before I left. Pretty much my book budget for the year. Well… I mean…. not really. But…

I should mention the beer at Scarlet Lane is fantastic. Highly recommend—the brewery is absolutely worth a visit all on its own.

I spent the night at Fort Harrison State Park Inn, a cool old hotel. It was so quiet I was briefly convinced I was the only guest. I had dinner and a couple more fantastic brews at Triton Brewing Company. And of course, had to have a book with me, since I bought so many good ones. This is Laurel Hightower’s Every Woman Knows This and I can’t wait to dig into it! That beer is their Strawberry Hometown Hero Ale. Isn’t it pretty?

Then up early in the morning to hike the Fall Creek Trail in the state park. I didn’t make those cairns, someone else’s handiwork. But I enjoyed. That’s Fall Creek. Hence the trail name. 🙂

I stopped off in Bloomington, IN for lunch because I wanted to see the town, and also go home a different way. Great lunch. Did a quick read from Quick Adjustments by Robert Scotellaro. I read Interpreter of Dreams, one of my favorites from that great new collection. It’s on my Instagram if you want to check it out.

And then I managed to add almost an hour to my drive time—oops!—by going all the way south to Kentucky before going west towards home. S’ok, it was rural scenery I would not have seen otherwise.

Got home to find that my husband has written a new song that’s pretty kick-ass heartbreaking. So we both had a productive weekend! I hope yours was fantastic too!

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What I’m reading and where I’m reading it. And what I’m drinking for part of the time I’m reading it.

So, this first one is a book about a woman driving alone in the mountains on her way to a horror convention, and encountering the Mothman or something like it and assorted other baddies along the way. For reasons I’ll explain in mid-April, that one skeered me. Below by Laurel Hightower is genuinely scary but it’s also empowering.

I enjoyed that book at Ebb & Flow Fermentations in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. Ebb & Flow has got just the best vibe. Inside it’s eclectic funky, and outside it’s herb garden magic. It’s February, so we’re inside. They have a series of beers named after goddesses and made by their women brewers. This one is Arduinna, which they describe as a dark saison ale with chocolate malt and roasted hickory bark. It was a perfect match.

Into the Forest and All the Way Through by Cynthia Pelayo is a collection of poems based on real life / true crime stories of murdered and missing American women and girls. It is heartbreaking. It’s one thing to read or write fiction that has murders — even if you are drawing from your own experience, you know the story itself is fiction. It’s another to write true crime — most of that is written in a clinical, research-forward way. Cina Pelayo goes into the heart and all the way through to your soul. I’ve not read anything quite like it.

So after all that seriousness, it seems almost stupid to talk about reading it in a bar during Valentine’s week. Johnson Bar in Paducah, Kentucky was all done up for the holiday, in reds and blacks and pinks and hearts and arrows and naughtiness and snarkiness and a nod to the heartbroken. The red lighting made the pictures kinda cool. That’s a Paloma I’m drinking — they do complex cocktails very well, but that night I was more traditional.

I am honored to call Meg Pokrass my friend. She has been my flash fiction mentor, a source of encouragement and inspiration, and a supporter when I needed a hug followed by a kick in the ass (all virtual). She lives now in Inverness, Scotland, the gateway to Loch Ness, and if Nessie is going to show herself to anyone, it’ll be Meg. They are two of a kind — mysterious, shy, beautiful and playful. Kissing the Monster Hunter is a series of flash fiction stories about a monster hunter. And love.

I was at Hill Prairie Winery upstate in Oakford, Illinois. They have historic pictures of horses on the wall — Morgans, a Percheron stallion, mules, work horses, all of them previously associated with the place in days of yore — so you know I loved it. The wine in this picture is Fireside Cran-Apple Spice, which tastes like a mulled wine.

Cheers!