A year ago this month my neighbor, Rita Williams, published a book she'd been working on for some time. She called it If the Creek Don't Rise and it's a memoir about her time growing up with her grandmother in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. We were all very excited for her not only because she got a great book published but also because it was very well received. Rita got an incredible break when Oprah Winfrey reviewed her book in O Magazine. Having someone so famous describe the emotional connection she had with the memoir really helps get people to notice a lot more quickly than they might have otherwise. Over the last year, it seemed like Rita was flying everywhere promoting her book. She put together a web site, and has been busy giving talks all over the nation. And this month the paperback was released.
A strange thing happened early this Monday. I had signed up to help with organizing talks in our local office as part of the Authors@Google series at the urging of one employees who's been doing the bulk of the organizing for the Santa Monica office and wanted some help and input from others in the office. He'd gone to the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books and met a number of authors he thought might be interested in coming to our office. When I went into our meeting, whose book was on the top of the stack but Rita's new paperback release of If the Creek Don't Rise!
I figured it was a wonderful coincidence and I knew I needed to invite Rita to speak at our office. I can't wait to see her talk and look forward to my colleagues getting to learn about her memoir too.
