Bella went to the Eatonton Mistletoe Market, as guests of the Georgia Writers Museum. She had a nice time, and a lot of kids patted her. Some kids also got to read her story, “Weezy and Bella to the Rescue” and she did not mind the attention.
So here are some things we saw when “Bella goes to Market” happened. Going to market, by the way, especially one of these little town fairs, is an important element of “Human Scale Living” which we like.
The Georgia Writers and Book Readings
There were some guest readings of “Weezy and Bella to the Rescue.” The weather cleared up, the crowd was friendly and we saw a lot of friendly kids and moms and grandparents. Bella was the star of the show, like she is.
Little Southern Town Essential Elements
We’ve written extensively about this in this blog and in our book “Little Southern Towns: The Nickel Tour” which you can get.
Little Southern Towns have a few common themes, and we were in the shadow of three of them. One of them is “the corner.” We have talked about “the corner” in the past, in that it is the middle of town, and if you want to give directions, you say go to “the corner” and take a left.
The Courthouse and Water Tower
These are such little town elements that they are the topic of a lot of country music songs. They represent continuity and a connection to the community. The courthouse in Eatonton is tidy, friendly, and the clock keeps the correct time. There is some chain saw art around including a salute to Uncle Remus.
Billbo Books Publishing
We had a friendly chat with Joy, who was attending the Billbo Books Publishing booth. They have a website:
This crew does various helping activities for people who want to publish their own books. According to Joy, they are very busy, and are doing this as a way to bring people together. Joy believes that writing a book and having it published is a life changing activity where once you have written and published a book or two, you look at the world differently.
Joy and Bo do the work of helping and handholding throughout this process. They call themselves “shepherds” in that they are somewhere between leading and driving prospective writers through the process, and have all kinds of contacts, including editing, publishing help, story consultation, and general encouragement.
Chain Saw Guy
Bella had no real comment on the presence of a live demonstration of Chain Saw Art:
Bella was speechless, but we are happy that this was going on as far as possible away from the Georgia Writers Museum kiosk, and thus the noise didn’t bother the book readers.
Chain Saw Art is a bit of a thing, in places where there are a lot of trees and rednecks. This fellow looked the part.
Bella Goes to Market: Fair Stuff
Bella did a couple of laps around the town square, and the crowd did not make her too nervous. We had terrible fast food for lunch, and called it good.
Bella Goes to Market is an obvious title for a new book, except that in this case, Bella didn’t get into any adventures, other than the fact that the kids loved her, and she got some time networking.
Be there in the square.
Here is some click love to the Georgia Writers, Eatonton and the Chain Saw Guy;
https://www.downtowneatonton.com/events-1/eatonton-mistletoe-market-2
Oh, and of course “Tales from the Firefly”
And, of course, a link to our book “Little Southern Towns” which has a chapter about Eatonton.
Thank you for mentioning Bilbo Books. We love Eatonton and the great people from Middle Georgia, especially the impressive additions to America’s grand literary tradition.