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We participated in our first spring festival, Greening Up the Mountains, this past Saturday, April 22nd, in the beautiful town of Sylva, NC. We couldn’t have asked for a better festival than this to kick off our spring-fall rounds of attending festivals and meeting old and new readers. It took place in downtown Sylva, with live music, over 200 arts-and-crafts and food vendors, and thousand of attendees, many of whom had dogs in tow. The picture to the left is of Railroad Avenue lined with vendor booths. Note the steeple in the background, which is now the library but was once the courthouse.
Jackie Burgin Painter, our first cousin once removed (I believe that’s the right terminology – she’s our dad’s first cousin) lives in Sylva. Jackie’s an outstanding historian whose books we used extensively in our Appalachian Journey series. We hoped to spend time with her but due to illness, Jackie couldn’t meet us. But there’s always next year because this is an event we do not want to miss and plan to attend in 2018.
I was curious how the town ended up with such a pretty name so did some research and it all goes back to William D. Sylva, a Danish wanderer who ended up in the small town of Webster, NC (named for Daniel Webster as a concession to the Whig element of the county) one blustery January evening in 1879. Frozen and starving, Sylva knocked on the door of Judge Riley D. Cannon’s house, where he was greeted by General E. R. Hampton, son-in-law of the judge. Judge Cannon welcomed Sylva inside for food and lodging for the night and liked him so well he invited the wayfarer to stay and work for 
him at his sawmill until he decided where he wanted to settle down. Eventually, General Hampton decided to build a town near Scott’s Creek where he also had a sawmill. When he asked his daughter, Mae, what they should name the post office, she immediately said, “Sylva”, because Sylva was the nicest person she had ever known. Although Sylva suggested they name the town something else, everyone seemed to be in agreement Mae had found the perfect name for the town. I think it fits.
We’re participating in a new festival this year: the 20th annual Greening Up the Mountains in Sylva North Carolina on Saturday, April 22nd from 10:00 until 4:00. We’ll be signing and selling all of the Appalachian Journey books, plus this will be the debut of Through the Brown Mountain Lights. It promises to be a fun day, and if the weather cooperates, it should be one of those perfect spring days in the mountains. We’d love to see some of our wonderful readers so if you’re in the area, drop by and see us!
… is finally available on Amazon! For some reason, Amazon hasn’t linked it to the ebook page yet but if you’d like a copy, just click on the picture below and it’ll take you to the print book’s page.
We’ve been so busy dealing with this (plus a couple of other exciting things that we’ll share with you later) that I forgot to thank everyone for voting on the cover. As you can see, blue won. Thanks so much to our awesome readers who take the time to let us know what they think and are a constant source of support and inspiration to us. We love all of y’all!
,,,new book! Yep, that’s right, Through the Brown Mountain Lights, the first book in our Brown Mountain Lights Series is now available on Kindle!
Wishing all of our awesome readers a wonderful holiday season!
We had a great time at Woodson Branch Nature School on Saturday, October 29th. The weather couldn’t have been more perfect while we got the chance to meet readers, sign copies of our books, and enjoy the enticing smell of a chili 
cookoff. In between meeting the attendees, we also talked about and resolved issues with our new series, the Brown Mountain Lights series, which is close to being finished. We hope to give our readers a glimpse of the beautiful cover very soon so watch for it!
Fall in the mountains is our favorite time of the year, and surprisingly the drought hasn’t affected the color of the trees which are 
beautiful, even more so when silhouetted against a fall cerulean sky.
Afterward, we drove down the mountain to Hot Springs to have dinner at our favorite diner, then walked to Bluff Mountain Outfitters, where we found out our books had sold out and were more than happy to sell more of the books to them. If you ever visit Hot Springs, be sure to stop in at Bluff Mountain. They cater to hikers hiking the Appalachian Trail and it’s a great place to hang out or shop. On our way out the door, we met the largest dog we’ve ever seen, a 2-year-old Great Dane named Briggs who was friendly and so adorable Christy wanted to take him home but couldn’t convince the owner to give him up. 
Before leaving, we visited Springbrook Cabins in Hot Springs to talk about booking an overnight stay when we plan to attend the Christmas festival in Marshall on December 9th and 10th. If you’re in the area at that time, we hope you’ll stop by and say hello. Christy took a picture of the trees outside the 
office there, which were too pretty to ignore.
This week, we’re in Florida visiting our dad (the storyteller behind the Appalachian Journey series), while working on the first edit of the first book in our new series, tentatively titled Through the Brown Mountain Lights. The book will take place during the Antebellum period in the Appalachian Mountains and, like our Appalachian Journey series, is filled with herbal medicine, Catawba folklore and a bit of romance wrapped around historical facts. We’re adding a different twist to this one (think Outlander meets Cold Mountain) and hope our readers will enjoy it as much as they have the Appalachian Journey series. We’ll announce the release on our CC Tillery Facebook page so stay tuned!
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