Leara’s Lore

  • Leara’s Lore #19: Remembering Ireland Series

    Reading books as a child started me on a lifetime love affair with stories. My father and I would go to estate sales and look for books. We crawled under tables and pulled books out of drawers to put in a carton sold to us for a dollar or five at the most. My father… Continue

  • Leara’s Lore #18: Where Do Writers Write?

    To have a place to write is part of the writing process and takes consideration. My writing place was not chosen haphazardly. I thought long and hard when I was beginning to write as to where I could write. I tried many different scenarios. Ultimately, I discovered that I could write just about anywhere I… Continue

  • Leara’s Lore #17: Why There Are Book Clubs

    The December meeting of the book club I attend is the one meeting when the women really dress up. There is the Christmas sweater bought in travels to Germany, a swanky scarf gotten at a local fair, a dress held for special occasions, and a red jacket with a Christmas wreath pen attached to the… Continue

  • Leara’s Lore #16: Storytelling

    Storytelling is central to why I write. My father told me stories as a child. He would ask for me to choose something in the room and then he would make up a story about that object. To test his abilities, I once chose a speck on the tile floor. I heard a story about… Continue

  • Leara’s Lore #15: I’m Learning to Fly

    As a girl of eight, I studied a flying squirrel. In my back yard I attempted to leap from a wooden table and try my wings. I wanted to fly, to soar through the sky and over the trees. I wanted Tinkerbell to sprinkle fairy dust and include me in the nightly flights to Neverland.… Continue

  • Leara’s Lore #14: Conyers Book Festival

    Book festivals have been around since 1485 when Frankfurt, Germany held its first trade fair. The printing press was active, and European booksellers began to come to Frankfurt to promote their books. Now, 540 years later, the Frankfurter Buchmesse welcomed 115,000 visitors from 153 countries, 4,300 exhibitors, with 7,500 media representatives covering 3,300 events during… Continue

  • Leara’s Lore #13: Review of Spancil Hill by former student

    As I’m typing this I just finished the last page of your book, and was overwhelmed.  Cahey’s story moved so fluidly and with so much detail that the years melted by as I read. I found myself looking around the city with a fresher lens, trying to imagine horses running through Times Square, mud kicking… Continue

  • Leara’s Lore #12: Ireland 2024

    The first stop in Dublin was to have lunch upstairs at the Kilkenny Shop on Nassau Street. When I taught two summers at the University College Dublin, I would take the bus up from campus to Stephen’s Green and walk along Grafton Street to wind up at the Kilkenny Shop for lunch and to hear… Continue

  • Leara’s Lore #11: For the Love of Horses

    Writing a novel was hard work. The research needed to learn how to care for horses in the late 1800s was difficult. I did not have a lot of time. I began writing Spancil Hill in 2018. I finished it in 2023. It was published in 2024. I was teaching full time at UGA until… Continue

  • Leara’s Lore #10: Writing Friends for Decades

    Forty-five years ago, Chuck Conner and I met at a writers’ conference held at Epworth-by-the-Sea on St. Simons Island, Georgia. We were both working full-time jobs and trying to write on the side. Chuck attended Emory at Oxford College and was accepted into Emory University School of Medicine on a full scholarship and graduated with.. Continue

  • Leara’s Lore #9: Book Signing at AthFest

    As summer temperatures climb in Georgia, gardening and getting a much-needed walk must be done in the morning. Afternoons are set aside for writing, editing, and housekeeping, inside with air-conditioning. Saturday afternoon, though, I requested a slot during AthFest to sign copies of Spancil Hill between noon and two. Continue

  • Leara’s Lore #8: Book Launch in Words and Pictures

    My task as a writer is to create images out of words, to set scenes, to choose dialogue that will tell more of the story. I tossed about in my head for several days the argument of is “a picture worth a thousand words.” My resolution is that both writing and photos are important. As… Continue

  • Leara’s Lore #7: Early Writing Mentors

    I wanted to be a poet. I wrote poems that I stuffed into the bottom of a tissue box so no one would read them but me. As a preacher’s daughter, I grew up living in a pastorium and when there were revivals, the visiting minister would stay in our house. That meant that my… Continue

  • Leara’s Lore #6: SPANCIL HILL By Leara Rhodes | Published by Old Fort Press

    When I turned in the key to the university office that I had occupied for nearly three decades, I had no idea what my future may hold. I had an academic routine that one could count on. Now I had endless days to fill. I began with a plan. Continue

  • Leara’s Lore #5: High School Reunion, Check

    My father loved Thomas Wolfe and would read his books over and over. I grew up hearing quotes from “You Can’t Go Home Again”: You can’t go back home to your family, back home to your childhood, back home to romantic love, back home to a young man’s dreams of glory and of fame, back… Continue

  • Leara’s Lore #4: Taking Time to Know Someone

    Chris is a handyman who can do anything around the house and yard that one man working alone can do. His work is stellar but getting to know Chris takes time. After five years of working for me, I only knew his name and that he lived in Winder, nothing more. His clothes offer no… Continue

  • Leara’s Lore #3: Article Coming Soon

    “A Place Jesse Freeman Calls Home” is a profile on a man who is a writer, storyteller and producer of stories using his own voice to define place and community. I wrote the profile for Lake Oconee Living Magazine and it should be in print and online in September. I have known Jesse for several… Continue

  • Leara’s Lore #2: Students Who Set Goals Often Succeed

    Every time my cell phone shows that “Lilly” is calling, I slide open the phone for a conversation that will share insights into art, theatre, travel, politics, friends we have in common, adventures, new projects, and always new ideas. As a student in my feature writing class, she sat on the front row and robustly… Continue

  • Leara’s Lore #1: In Memory of Christy Gray

    Every time I entered her cottage I was greeted with a shout of “Big Love” from another room. And though she was a bigger than life person, both in stature and in spirit, she would appear soon, that was before cancer, or call you to come to where she was once cancer was diagnosed and… Continue