A new section had been added to my website: a question and answer section or FAQ (frequently asked questions). If you have a question, email it to me and I shall be happy to answer it on my website. I look forward to hearing from you.

In December, 2008, the 8th Ladies of Covington novel will be published. The name will be Promises of Change. Covington may or may not be on the cover, so please look for my name. Authors name their books, but there is no guarantee that a publisher will use that name. Book # 6 of the series was changed from The Seasons of Covington to Two Days after the Wedding, which proved confusing to many readers. So please, come December 2008, watch for Promises of Change or order it ahead at your favorite bookstore (it will be in the large size paperback) or library. Much is happening in Covington and in the lives of Grace, Amelia, and Hannah.

Four of my books will be published in Czechoslovakian. These are the first of my books to be published and sold in a foreign country. The books are: The Spirit of Covington, At Home in Covington, Two Days after the Wedding and A Covington Christmas.

I am working on a new Covington holiday novel presently called Christmas Past and Present. Look for it in the fall of 2009.

I am honored to have been invited to be the author/speaker at Our State magazine's yearly conference on the week-end of July 4th at Pinehurst Resort in NC. I will speak on the topic of Possibilities. Information about registration is available on my web site on my SCHEDULE page.

Western North Carolina's Red Hat Queen's Council will host the yearly state Red Hat Convention called Mountain Magic on November, 7-8-9, 2008 at the Crown Plaza Hotel in Asheville, NC. I have been invited and will speaking at this convention. For a registration form or to register by mail contact: Cyd Ashmore at 105 Riverwind Drive. Hendersonville, NC 28739 or email ncconvention08@bellsouth.net Further details see: northcarolinaredhats.org

We are all born with particular skills and abilities. When we are able to use this skills and abilities in our work whether it be volunteer work or paid work we thrive, grow, and are content.

To some of us, listening to and/or nurturing others brings great satisfaction. Some of us enjoy working with numbers, figures, and details. Others are excellent managers, organizers, coordinators, and implementers of ideas or projects. Some of us are actors, musicians, painters, potters, weavers etc, etc. Some of us love to cook and are creative cooks. Some of us are introverts and some are extroverts. Imagine how unhappy an introvert might be if she or he were required to be a salesman or how frustrated a person might be if he/she worked alone at a solitary repetitive job when he/she loved being with people.

I didn't understand what my skills were until I was thirty-five years old and a therapist pointed out to me that I was a self-starter, an organizer, a coordinator and that I grew things well. That can be a plant, a project, a novel, and I have been blessed to be able to work at jobs that afforded me the opportunities to use these skills.

I have been Director of Beautification for the US Virgin Islands. I started with one truck, two workmen, and lots of enthusiasm and imagination. I loved my work, and the program grew and grew, as did my staff and budget.

Later, I worked at a privately-funded Senior Center in Boca Raton, Florida, where I developed Lifetime Learning classes for retirees, way before they became the popular programs they are today. Within a few years, what started as 6 classes grew to over 70 classes a semester.

And now I write. I take an idea, it grows and becomes a novel.

Somewhere along the line, I wanted to be an opera singer-not my gift!

I thought I wanted to be an archaeologist. Teach it, maybe, but get out there in the hot sun and slowly scrape away the dust of centuries? I don't think so.

If you have worked outside the home, where has your work life taken you? Did you enjoy it? If you were a stay at home Mom, what gave you most pleasure about that lifestyle?

Talking about skills, I am a huge advocate of volunteering. It's a great way to meet new people, make new friends, start you thinking in a whole new direction and bring change. It can be very meaningful. My first volunteer job was as a storyteller at the children's section of the library in St. Thomas. Ask my grandsons, they'll tell you what they remember most about their relationship with me when they were little was that I would tell them stories. They would say, "tell me about a king, or a dragon," or whatever they fancied at the time, and I would weave a tale straight out of fantasy. Maybe that's why creating a story for a novel is so easy to me. More recently I volunteered for several years at the library near my home, first sorting and pricing used books for our yearly sale, then as a member of the Friends of the Library Board, and then as coordinator for two years of the Weaverville Book Fair.

Especially if you move to a new town, volunteering can bring you new friends. I volunteered at our Art Museum in Asheville and met someone who became a very dear and lifelong friend.

Look around you. There are so many things to volunteer for, so many ways to help, not just others, but yourselves.

email: jmedlicott@mindspring.com

web: http://www.joanmedlicott.com