Author Website

You can read more about us and our books by visiting our website. www.jenniferyoungblood.com

New Facebook Page "A Merry Little Christmas"

It's hard to believe Christmas is almost here...again. I love this time of the year! Mom and I have teamed up with authors Marnie Pehrson and Marcia McClure to bring you lots of holiday goodies. We're doing weekly give-a-ways, funny Christmas clips, recipes, decorating tips, etc. This is our way of highlighting those cozy traditions that make our Christmases more memorable. Check it out at http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/A-Merry-Little-Christmas/174491895900812

More on THE PAPER ROSE CLUB

Four best friends. One small town. A lifetime of memories. Nothing could ever come between them…or so it would seem.
Journey to a town where everybody being in everybody’s business is an accepted way of life. Experience the heartaches and joys of living connected lives within the cozy confines of the town square and city limits. You’ll laugh and you’ll cry; but most of all, you won’t want to leave because Honeycomb will worm its way into your heart, carrying you home to that place that you never really left.

Read all about it at www.paperroseclub.com.

The Paper Rose Club

It has been a busy year...and it's only May! In November of last year, my mom and I launched a new project called THE PAPER ROSE CLUB. We wanted to do something that would stretch us to the limit...and it has. We undertook the tremendous challenge of releasing a book online...writing it as we went. Every week since November, we've been releasing segments of the novel. Readers have been logging onto the site and giving us feedback. And we created the virtual town of Honeycomb to go along with it--complete with a newspaper and a sassy column by a bombshell redhead who was a former Miss Alabama.

This project has been both challenging and rewarding. We had hoped to stay at least four segments ahead to give us some breathing room, but due to a move, sickness, and all of the other crazy things that come up in day-to-day life, we've been writing it by the skin of our teeth--often staying up until late in the evening on Wednesday to meet the Thursday deadline. Most of this week's segment was written on a plane, with me wedged between two strangers and crossing my fingers that the guy drinking the beer wouldn't spill it all over my laptop.

We love the storyline and the characters! This story has emerged organically because we don't have as much time to plan. It has a fresh feel to it that might not otherwise have been there. If you haven't had a chance to read it, you can check it out at www.paperroseclub.com. HAPPY READING, and be sure to drop us a line.

Thank Goodness for Friends

Thank Goodness for Friends

I was just thinking today how wonderful it is to have good friends. I'm venturing into uncharted territory and am three fourths of the way finished with writing my first stage play. I'm grateful for the help and advice of a good friend who has an extensive background in theater. She's helping me iron out all of the rough spots--and, trust me, there are many! The play is based on the true story of an amazing lady who had the courage to step out into dark to find the light. It's aptly named "Into the Light." Some stories are great through the telling, and others are just simply great through the sheer merit of the story. This is one of those stories that only comes to an author once in a lifetime. I just hope that at the end of the day, I will have done it justice.

For the Love of Dogs

If you're like me, many of your childhood memories are wrapped up in your family pets. My mother and I recently wrote a short article about this for our Confessions of a True Southerner Series called Our Dogs Wear Clothes Too. We posted the article on our website at www.jenniferyoungblood.com. If you could use a good laugh, check it out!

Family Legends

Do you have that legend in your family that you've heard about since you were three? We have a legend in my family, and her name was Ada Lou Mullinax. She was my great grandmother on my maternal line. Unfortunately, I never got to meet her because she died two years before I was born. I feel like I know her though because I have heard stories about her all of my life.

At just over five feet tall, this diminutive woman was the picture of southern grace, but she had enough fire and grit in her to light up an entire town. She was born on October 15, 1901 in Talking Rock, Georgia and spent the majority of her life in a small Alabama community called Alder Springs. She let my mother and all of the other grandkids know in no uncertain terms that she was too young to be a grandmother so they could call her by her first name. In the south, her name is pronounced “Ader.” Years later, she decided that she wanted the grandkids to call her momaw, but they all told her it was too late—she would always be Ader to them.

Alder Springs doesn’t even rank as a town. It’s so small that you could blink your eyes and miss it. You won’t find it on many maps because it’s too insignificant to warrant a pin dot. Even today, few people are aware of its existence. What made my great grandmother so special then?

Ader lived in a precarious and pivotal time in southern history. Ader and her husband owned a farm where they raised cotton. For centuries, cotton had been the livelihood of the South, but things were changing. Cotton was no long yielding the income that it once had. And it couldn’t have come at a worst time—on the eve of the great depression. When Roosevelt came into office, he proposed the New Deal as a way to keep the south somewhat solvent. The government started paying farmers to plow under their cotton to help drive up the price. The farmers during this era had to embrace the winds of change in a very personal way. I have the highest admiration for these tenacious, stubborn people who toiled their life away on a strip of land in a remote area of Alabama.

To these people, their word was their honor. They faced their trials with optimism and courage. Ader spent her life helping other people. With tears in her eyes, my mother often speaks of the time when she didn’t want to go to a school dance because she didn’t have a nice dress to wear. She came home one afternoon to find Ader making her a dress. They couldn’t afford to buy any new material, so she took one of her favorite dresses and remade it for my mom.

About a decade ago, I was helping my mom move from Texas to Alabama when I came across some notes that she’d jotted down about Ader. For as long as I can remember, my mom has talked about writing a book about her. I became intrigued with the story and convinced my mom to work with me so that we could write the story of my great grandmother and all of the other heroes of that forgotten time. Once we got started, there was no turning back. LIVIN’ IN HIGH COTTON was published in 2004. Writing LIVIN’ IN HIGH COTTON gave me the opportunity to unearth and bring to life the legends of my childhood. There’s something about putting a story on paper that makes it immortal. My mom and I had always had a wonderful relationship, but working together has enhanced it and taken it to a new dimension. We have both rejoiced in our triumphs and suffered through our failures—together. I learned a great deal about where I came from and the tremendous legacy that has been left to me. I learned the importance of family and how vital it is to keep good records to pass down to the next generation. But most of all, I learned about myself. I’m so very grateful for the lifelong journey that began with a few scattered notes.