The lights were off and the chirping cricket chorus was deafening. For a year, my dear publisher and collaborator-photographer and I had a serious disagreement with the charity benefiting from our book, From Heartache to Hope: Middle Tennessee Families Living with Autism. So, my promotion of the book and its' appearances in the author community was virtually nil. This followed a very successful year of generous television, newspaper and online press (thank you) and sales of all but a fifth of the coffee table book's inventory. But, baby, the fences have been mended and the lights are back on at LeisaHammett.com in regards to our book and I'm singing in the shower. Happy news is also that:
Parnassus Books (Nashville's internationally acclaimed new indie bookstore) is carrying copies of our book. Of all the pictures I need to delete from my droid, this is the one I inadvertently erased. Boo! It looked real pretty sitting on the shelf with other local author's books….
And, the Autism Society of Middle Tennessee continues to make creative use of Rebekah Pope's beautiful photographs of the special families whose stories graced our book. Despite our stalemate/disagreement, I continued to promote the good work of information and referral that they do…Principle before people. It's about helping people. ASMT is the go-to source for information and referrals about all-things autism in Middle Tennessee. As, well, I continued (and still do) to speak for ASMT for their parent portion of their (free) bi-monthly Autism Orientation. The next one is Thursday, May 17, 6:30p.m.-8:30 p.m., Vanderbilt Kennedy Center. All ties were not broken with this small, now burgeoning non-profit. So, I celebrate with ASMT, and as part of the general autism community, the goodwill of Chris and Dessie Bostick of Carnival Kia ("Don't You Leave Without Seeing Me") as the lead sponsors of ASMT's annual "Pieces of Hope Benefit" this year during April — National Autism Awareness Month. See our book images here in their video:
