Fifty-six authors showed up to sign books Saturday morning at the 4th Annual Author Extravaganza according to Becky Smith, manager of the Town Crier Bookstore in downtown Emporia.

That’s a lot of peeps – and the store isn’t all that big. But they moved the movable displays into the back room, brought in tables and chairs and at 11:00 a.m., the fun officially began.

This is Donna Dilsaver, of Wichita, who wrote “An American Woman’s Zest for Living.” She wrote the book with her granddaughters in mind, to show them that a woman can have a successful professional career, a family, and be involved in their community – no matter where they live, Kansas, for instance. It’s the bloom-where-you-are-planted philosophy. Among other things, she worked for 20 years in KG&E’s corporate communications division on the Wolf Creek Project.

Jerry Engler, who lives near Marion, has written a series of three “Just Folks” books. He makes up stuff which is why he called his latest book “Highly Embellished Truth and Some Poetry.” He’s a very personable guy with lots of stories to tell. I met Jerry at one of these book signings years ago and have his first book.

Reg Redding (who went to ESU) and Ray Haskell, both of Wichita and both work in the financial arena, have written “The Game of Wealth- Strategies of Gaining Wealth.” The first part of the book, they said, talks about priorities (faith, family, fitness and friends) and the second part is about practical things to do to get your finances in order. They suggest that money is more meaningful and easier to obtain if you have those first four things going for you.

James “Spike” Speicher of Shawnee has a new fan in David Scheller. Speicher’s book, The Sumter Flying Artillery, is about a unit in the Civil War. Speicher’s great uncle was in that unit (as was a relative of Pres. Jimmy Carter). The book was released by Pelican Publishing.

Emporia attorney Michael Halleran wrote “The Better Angels of Our Nature,” combining his fascination with Freemasonry and the Civil War. The title comes from the last line of Abraham Lincoln’s first inaugural address.

Halleran says there are hundreds of incidents during the Civil War in which Freemasons, on both sides of the war, laid down their weapons and related to each other fraternally instead of as enemies.

It wasn’t just Carolyn Hall’s chocolate angel food cake (she brought samples) that won me over – this woman told me some great stories from her youth – and luckily she’s written them down in a combination recipe/memoir book called “Prairie Meals and Memories.” She lives in Shawnee now, but she grew up on a farm near Olmitz in my home county (Barton). I could’ve talked to her for hours about Barton County, about writing; she seemed like an old friend.  I purchased this book so I can read those growing-up-on-a-farm stories of hers. Carolyn also teaches memoir writing and that’s the subject of her next book.

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