Wednesday, September 5, 2007

Decatur Book Festival

I hope everyone had a great Labor Day weekend. I spent Saturday and Sunday at the Decatur Book Festival, a two-day event that brings writers and readers together. This was only the second year for the festival held in the heart of Decatur, GA, a beautiful town that sits on the eastern edge of Atlanta.

Last year, I helped man a booth for my local Sisters in Crime chapter. With over 50,000 folks attending, I decided my Georgia Romance Chapter needed to be involved this year.

The weather was hot but beautiful, and we passed out lots of promo material from all our great authors, plus information on our upcoming Moonlight and Magnolias Conference. By the way, registration will remain open until September 15th. Currently, eleven editors and agents will be attending. In addition, we'll have a book fair and autographing, featuring all our authors as well as our keynote speaker, Linda Howard.

But back to the Decatur Book Festival. More than 15 venues around the small-town square hosted talks by well-known authors. Diana Gabaldon stopped by our booth to say hello. I introduced myself, then noted she had an author pin on. "You're a writer," I gushed, never having seen her picture. Diana was a doll and laughed when I said I was sorry I didn't recognize her.

Suzanne Brockmann was there as well. GRW President Anna DeStefano and I stopped by her authographing to offer her a warm Georgia welcome. Of course, many of our own GRW gals spoke, including Anna, Karen White, Wendy Wax, Carmen Green, and Patti Callahan Henry.

There were activities for the little ones, lots of good food, music and entertainment and thousands of people talking about books. What could be better? I'll be there again next year. If you're in the area, be sure to stop by!

I'll be giving away another chance to win a copy SCARED TO DEATH to anyone who stops by the blog to say hello. Flo won a copy last week! Congratulations, Flo.

Here's my recipe:

Low-Fat Trifle

Place sections of angel food cake in bottom of trifle bowl
Pour a few tablespoons of sherry or white wine over the cake (can be excluded)
Make a recipe of sugar-free instant pudding and pour over cake
Make a recipe of sugar-free jello and once it begins to thicken pour over pudding
Layer with a can of low-sugar peaches, drained (other fruit can be used)
Top with layer of sugar-free Cool Whip
Chill until pudding and jello is firm

Enjoy!

Wishing you abundant blessings!
Debby

2 comments:

Anna Dynowski said...

Hey, Debby, your recipe sounds delicious. Can't wait to try it. Also, I'm enjoying your class at Southern Magic online workshop. Thanks for doing it.
God Bless!
Anna Dynowski

Debby Giusti said...

Hi Anna,
I'm so glad you like the class, and I hope you'll be able to use some of the information. I know Lenora will have lots of wonderful goodies for us next week!

Let me know if you make the trifle. My kids always beg for more!
All the best!
Debby