One Sister's Song: One book's back story
Audrey Conarroe, a biracial woman, never planned to move back to her small, predominantly white, hometown in western New York. But when she was named guardian to her teenage nephew, she had no choice but to do just that. Eight months later, Audrey prepares to sell her sister’s old farmhouse when a series of discoveries forces her to rethink everything she’s ever assumed about love, race, and respect.
Creating a book takes a team effort, and I was very fortunate to team up with Sherry Seiber of Pearl Street Publishing here in Denver in that regard. Sherry published my first novel, One Sister's Song in 2002 in a 500-copy print run. If you watched The Waltons way back when, you may remember the scene in which the adult John-Boy opens a box of his first book. I had a John-Boy moment at the (unfortunately now-defunct) Rocky Mountain Book Festival in April 2002 when I opened a box full of copies of the first edition of One Sister's Song. The cover was plain but a pretty blue, I'd flown back to Denver from Dallas, where we lived for two years, just for the show, and the books were literally hot off the press. I'll never forget that moment. (And yes, I told everyone within earshot about the John-Boy scene, and they all thought I was crazy.)
In 2004, the current edition was published via still relatively new print-on-demand technology pioneered by companies such as Booksurge (which eventually became Amazon's Createspace and is now Kindle Direct Publishing). The cover art features a quilt panel created by my dear friend, Michele Holcombe Pisetzner, and stitched by her mom, Cheryl Holcombe, and the cover was designed by Wendy Halitzer.
Since then, an audio edition of One Sister's Song has been recorded and added to the Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic (now Learning Ally) catalog for students with reading disabilities.
One Sister's Song is sold on Amazon in paperback and on Kindle.
To order signed copies, or if you'd like me to visit with your Denver-area book club, call into a book club meeting, or participate in a virtual meeting, feel free to contact me directly at karen.carter1@comcast.net.
To read more about One Sister's Song (one of my favorite subjects, I admit!), visit Excerpts, Reviews, and Extras.
