It's release day for BK Reeves!!!
The Open Face of Heaven, her second Orphan Train story from The Wild Rose Press, is available today!!! Leave a comment and you'll be eligible to win a free copy!!!
The Open Face of Heaven
by BK Reeves
Available from
The Wild Rose Press
Just what the doctor ordered... After losing her parents, Milly Blakely cut her hair and pretended to be younger to get on the Orphan Train. She’s come a long way to find a new family. Her heart hungers for someone to love. When she spies a frail and sick-looking young woman with a frowning, yet handsome man at the Orphan Train’s stop in Addison, Kansas, she knows she can help these people and can’t wait to get started. But can she love these hurting people without getting hurt herself? Rad Powell’s wife, Frances, is dying. He gives in to her wish for a companion and takes in Milly Blakely. Milly is a blessing and so much more than a mere companion during Frances’ last days. After the loss of his wife, he realizes how much this young woman has changed his life and touched his bruised heart. Can he find a second chance at love?
***
And now it's my pleasure to welcome BK back to
Just Write!
Writer’s Voice by B.K. Reeves
I’ve been writing a long time and have had some truly outstanding mentors. My parents enrolled me in school when we moved to Kent County in October 1938. When my mother went home, the first grade teacher, after she discovered I was writing short stories, and writing cursive at that, promoted me to the second grade. By the end of the day, the other students were calling me Smart Kid, and not in a friendly way. My mother went to school and made it plain to everyone that I was not, repeat not, to skip grades, explaining that she wanted me to remain with my own age group.
The school itself was a gigantic red brick building that housed classes one through eleven. That’s as far as Texas schools went at the time. Right away, I volunteered to be school reporter, and that’s how I became acquainted with the editor of the local newspaper, a Mr. Johnson. (Not his real name.) I took him the school news and gave him a piece I’d written about moving from a small country school in Oklahoma to this large Texas school. He complimented me on my voice and told me, when I asked, that voice was how a writer sounded coming off the page. He explained that voice has to do with style and the way a writer expresses this style. He was very kind to me, never seeming too busy to visit.
Mr. Johnson taught me so many things. He said a writer should write honestly, with the simplest words possible. He told me to remember my reader and his/her expectations. He explained suspension of disbelief. Meanwhile, he was printing some of my think pieces in the paper, but only after he stringently edited them, scrawling across one piece he rejected Where‘s your voice here? He encouraged me to read, so I set out to read every book in the Jayton School Library.
The library was a narrow hall-like apartment directly in back of the study hall, with a tiny window where students could come and confer with the librarian. By now, I was officially part-time student librarian (at age eleven), and it wasn’t unusual for a size-huge football player to amble up to the window and ask me to recommend a short, easy-to-read book for a book report he had due. Others did the same, and I became a mentor to anyone approaching that window.
I had many other duties at school but my bliss was complete when I could work in the library, helping students of all ages. Teaching as I did for many years in the Continuing Education Departments at San Jacinto Central and South, and at Gilruth at NASA, I mentored hundreds of students. I can’t begin to tell you how much I learned from them. At the same time, I can’t forget my first mentor, Mr. Johnson. He was great and is ever green in my memory.
***
Thanks, BK!!! Congrats on the new release!!!
You can visit BK at
www.bkreeves.com
