Friday, June 6, 2008
Greenwood Country Club
11:30 am - 1:30 pm
Tickets $20
Book signing 11:00 a.m. - 11:30 a.m. and 1:30 -2:00 p.m.
Committee: Chair, Myra Schaffer
Debbie Dill, Ellesor Holder, Beth Husser, Jo Patterson, Lisa Smith
Sponsor:
Park Seed Company
Associate sponsor:
The Greenwood Country Club
Door prizes provided by:
Confetti, Cabot Cheese, Hill Country Lavender Farm, Mary Kay Cosmetics, SILPADA fine sterling jewelry, Thayer’s
Sometimes you don’t get everything you want…
Sometimes you get lavender…
This is the theme of first book by Festival of Flowers Luncheon speaker Jeannie Ralston, an accomplished writer turned lavender farmer. The Unlikely Lavender Queen: A Memoir of Unexpected Blossoming is the true story of this magazine writer who after a stimulating former life as a magazine writer in Manhattan and Austin, Ralston reluctantly moves to rural Texas as part of a bargain with her husband. Eventually, she takes over the lavender farm he has started and builds it into a successful business — in the process of transforming herself, her community, and the agricultural industry of her area.
For more than 23 years, Ralston has been writing for magazines, both on-staff and as a freelancer. Her work has been published in Life, Time, National Geographic, The New York Times, Smithsonian, Audubon, Texas Monthly, Glamour, Conde Nast Traveler, Travel & Leisure, Real Simple and This Old House. She was a contributing editor for Allure for eight years, for Ladies Home Journal for three years and has held that position at Parenting magazine for the past eight years.
A native of Kingsport, Tennessee and a graduate of the University of South Carolina, Ralston now lives with her husband - photographer Robb Kendrick - and two sons in the charming colonial town of San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.
The Unlikely Lavender Queen will be a major hardcover release in May ‘08 from Doubleday Broadway Publishing.
Tickets go on sale May 1, 2008 and can be purchased at the Greenwood Area Chamber of Commerce, “Uptown” Bath & Kitchen and the Federal Building.