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To Come and Go Like Magic 

by Katie Pickard Fawcett

Random House/Knopf Books for Young Readers, 2010

Twelve-year-old Chili Sue Mahoney has never been outside of her small Appalachian town. Momma says Mercy Hill, Kentucky, is her “true home,” but Chili longs to see the world—to have the freedom to leave and to explore.
So when Miss Matlock is brought in as the 7th grade substitute teacher, Chili and her classmate Willie Bright are thrilled. Everyone knows Miss Matlock has traveled around the globe. Why she’s come back to her childhood home after all this time is a mystery, but Chili and Willie are eager to befriend her despite the rumors. As the three spend time together, Chili learns about the jungles and deserts and cities of the world. But she also discovers that there’s more to Mercy Hill than she thought: beauty, in the people and places she’s known all her life, and secrets, sometimes where they’re least expected.
Told in vignettes and set in 1970s Appalachia, To Come and Go Like Magic is a heartwarming and hopeful debut novel about family, friendship, and the meaning of home that can be appreciated by all ages.

Katie Pickard Fawcett

Katie has been a social worker in Appalachia, written ads for Peace Corps and VISTA on government contract, and written about projects in developing countries for an international organization.   She has published articles and essays in several magazines and local newspapers and journals.  She holds a B.S. degree in psychology, sociology, and education.  Favorite pasttimes include traveling, birdwatching, gardening and cooking. She lives in McLean, Virginia with her husband and son.

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Saving The Best For Last:

 Creating Our Lives After 50 

by Renee Fisher, Joyce Kramer & Jean Peelen

iUniverse Books, 2009

Due to the overwhelming response of the authors' first book Invisible No More: The Secret Lives of Women Over 50, Saving the Best For Last incorporates several new chapters, as well as an exciting interactive element throughout. You can not only read Renee's, Jean's and Joyce's enlightening and very real experiences of aging and reinvention, you can also participate in powerful life changing individual and group exercises and processes that will forever change the way you see the years after 50. The three authors speak candidly about many topics, including: sexuality, dating and mating, money, faith and spitituality, our mothers, loss, and friendship.  As you, too, pass the threshold of fifty, you may discover, as these women did, that this is a moment in your life to celebrate - a beginning, rather than an ending. This is a journey you will not want to miss. Saving the Best For Last is your roadmap and your guidebook.

Renee Fisher

Renee Fisher has been writing fiction and poetry since childhood. In 2001 her novel, King of the Gypsies, was published through iUniverse. She has had several short stories published in literary magazines, including Kingfisher and Metroplitain. She earned an Honorable Mention in the Lorian Hemingway Short Story Competition. Renee is currently the humor writer on examiner.com and is working on her second novel. Formerly an artist and special education teacher, she has been a Realtor in the Washington, DC area since 1979. In 2000 she started the first non-denominational speed dating company, Brief Encounters USA.