A few weeks ago, I got a message from Poisoned Pen Press informing me that they had received a call from a cousin-by-marriage of my father’s, Jean Morgan, who had read The Old Buzzard Had It Coming, and was anxious to get hold of me. Of course, rather than give out my number, Marilyn at the press contacted me with Jean’s information so that I could call her if I wanted.
I haven’t seen Jean for almost forty years, but I did certainly remember her and her family, and called her. As it turns out, Jean and her husband Charles Lee, my father’s cousin, are living in my great-grandfather George Washington Morgan’s house outside of Boynton. Though not exactly the same, this is the very house, Dear Reader, that I use as the model for Alafair’s house in my books. My great-grandparents, George and Alafair, and their kids (including my grandmother ), moved from Hayden, KY, into that house outside of Boynton in 1911, and lived in it for the rest of their lives. Alafair died in about 1940, before I was born, but George lived until I was about eight or ten. The house stayed in the family after his death, going to their youngest daughter, my great-aunt Grace, who lived there until she died and Jean and Charles Lee bought it.
I haven’t seen the house in twenty-five years, since before Grace died. I understand it is much improved since I used to run around in the yard with all the other barefoot little great-grandkids, eating boiled chicken feet and jumping off the roof of the hen house. I have been invited to go out and have a look at it when I go back to Oklahoma in October for the Hornswoggled book tour.
Speaking of Hornswoggled, it is now available for pre-publication order at the Poisoned Pen Press web site (www.poisonedpenpress.com. See the “Links” page. ) You can get a look at the cover and read a blurb, as well.
Keep an eye on this site. We intend to be making some changes this month, as I gear up for the big fall publicity push, both for the release of Hornswoggled in September, and for the “Oklahoma Reads Oklahoma” program in September and October.
May 3rd, 2006
Donis, I met you last fall at your reading at Changing Hands in Tempe (I was the guy born in Muskogee, OK). As I told you then, I truly enjoyed reading the Old Buzzard Had It Coming. In fact, I enjoyed it so much I wrote a review of it on Amazon.com. Speaking of which, I saw today that Hornswogled is due out at the end of September. I can’t wait to read it! All my best, Randy