I gave my first reading of my children’s novel, Gentle’s Holler, in Sylva, North Carolina, in the spring of 2005. I noticed a woman in the front row, Dot Connor, in her sixties with a shy smile and eyes bright and alive with curiosity. I wondered why she was there, because it was mostly children gathered. I learned she was the daughter of Mary Jane Queen, a mountain ballad singer, and my book reminded her of her own large family.
