ONE OF THOSE SMALL-WORLD COINCIDENCES

It's been a busy and interesting week.  Last Friday, I had a lesson in glass-blowing at the annual Festival of Glass at Blenko Glass in Milton, West Virginia.   Having never done anything like this, I wasn't sure what to expect.  The men working on the production floor are experienced.  I talked to 6 of them and each one had worked at Blenko for at least 30 years.  They were extremely patient and took time answering my many questions.  My project was to make a vase.
The first step was choosing colors from piles of broken bits of glass.  I chose cranberry, blue and white.  Next came the rolling and the molding and the blowing and finally, the finishing process.  When the piece is finished it has to go through a slow-cooling process.  I get to pick up the finished product this Thursday.  Can't wait see how it turned out.





On Saturday, Rick and I attended the second annual Lewisburg Literary Festival.  Noah Adams read from his book Far Appalachia.  His voice is every bit as amazing in person as it sounds on the radio.  In the afternoon Jeannette Walls talked about her unique childhood and about writing her memoir The Glass Castle.  People in the audience were delighted to learn that Jennifer Lawrence has recently signed on to star in the movie.  In between events, we watched a terrific documentary film called "Conversations with Booksellers" by filmmaker Russell Williams about the importance of independent bookstores to communities  (it's hard to tell you how much I enjoyed watching this).  At the end of the afternoon we loved hearing novelist Glenn Taylor read from his latest work-in-progress.
On Sunday, I had a book signing at Tamarack, the arts and crafts center on I-77/I-79 in Beckley, WV.  Sunday is a good time to do a book signing because travelers are heading home after a weekend, usually having had a relaxing and enjoyable time.   I had lots of interesting conversations with people who stopped to chat, including a young librarian who works in Welch, WV and alerted me to the fact that the documentary Hollow will have a screening at the Clay Center in Charleston sometime soon.  (Glad to know that!)  The conversation that was the mind-blower for the afternoon was with a school librarian from a suburban community near Chicago.  She was on her way home from a vacation in North Carolina.  After looking through my book, Passing The Music Down, a story inspired by the lives of 2 old-time fiddle players, an old master named Melvin Wine and his young apprentice, Jake Krack, she told me that she had known a man in college who had had a passion for old-time music.  She said he had been obsessed by it.  She also mentioned his name -- Brad Leftwich. 
I did a double-take.
"Brad Leftwich?" I asked.
"Yes," she said.
I smiled as I opened my book to the Author's Note at the end where I tell the real "story-behind-the- story."  I pointed to one name in particular.  "Look," I said, with my finger aimed directly at Brad Leftwich's name.  "He was Jake Krack's teacher in Indiana," I told her.  "He's the one who told Jake he ought to get his parents to take him to the Appalachian String Band Festival at Clifftop to meet Melvin Wine.  Brad Leftwich is the reason this whole story happened."
She looked dumbstruck for a moment.  Then we both started laughing.
"I think I was meant to be here today," she said.
"What are the odds?" I said.
And then we both said, "small world."