Imagining Heaven

Friday night, May 14, the publicity party and book signing for the anthology Imagining Heaven took place at the Palmer Building in Charlotte, NC. All the contributors to this book were invited to the party and we were advised that we could bring a guest. Bill and I left to drive to Charlotte on Thursday and planned to have a nice travel and time together in Charlotte before the party on Friday night.
We were enamored once again with the looks and feel of the town of Charlotte. We had a hotel room close to shopping and restaurants and the Palmer Building in South Charlotte. The weather was beautiful and our whole time there was just the best. We love Dean and Deluca and spent mornings there for coffee and breakfast. Wish we had one here.
The party on Friday night was dream like. The books were delivered while we were there and it was our first look at them. The woman who had the whole concept for this project, Linda Matney, is doing such a wonderful job of supporting hospice. All the proceeds of the book go to hospice. That is why they chose not to sell the book on Amazon or anywhere besides the website they have set up at imaginingheaven.com. That way they can say that 100% of the proceeds go to hospice.
The cover is a serene scene painted by artist, David Thompson. They had the original watercolor on display at the center. The book was edited by Maureen Ryan Griffin. I took one of Maureen’s classes at John C Campbell and it was she that suggested that I send the story I wrote in that class to Imagining Heaven. She is a wonderful instructor and I learned so much in her class, Thinking Like DiVinci. I was so delighted when my prose piece, Fly Away Home, was accepted and now I see that there will be a part two to the book so I’ll probably submit something to that as well. Information about that is on the website or will be. I haven’t actually seen it but there is information in the back of the book.
Back to the party: There was entertainment by three women who played wonderful background music. I can’t even remember what instruments they played but it was beautifully done. There was an open bar with the best bar tender and the food was catered by (love this name!) La Te Da. The waiters walked around making sure everyone had one more delicious bite of something and it was all really good. They had one little appetizer that was really different. They had tiny little ice cream cones filled with cheese or chicken salad and different little treats. It was funny seeing everyone eating these little cones and very convenient to be able to carry it around with us while we walked around meeting new people. We met so many interesting people from hospice and all the people that were involved with getting this book off the ground. I was impressed and glad to be a part of it all.