I messaged my friends at Mud Street Cafe and Mud Street Annex to let them know how much I appreciate their hospitality while I was clicking away on the Kensington keyboard of my little old iPad Mini 2, writing drafts of the three People of the Water novels there. I hope I didn’t forget anyone who was there during my writing blizzard 2018-2020, but I listed all I could remember on the Acknowledgments pages. This one is from the Kindle edition of “The Water Cure.”

We also have/have had a wonderful community of history-minded curators, authors and storytellers who keep Eureka Springs’ past alive, and as many of them that I could recall are named too.

I was struggling with the cover photos for all three books. I’d taken some lovely photos of blue, red and white wine bottles with the backdrop of the Crescent Hotel at sunset, but they just weren’t communicating the story.

I asked for suggestions among my Facebook friends, and Ashley Peake Wellman came through with “medicine bottles.” Of course!

Ashley is the author of a couple of fine children’s books and co-author a young readers book called Ghosts of the Abbey (Amazon) that I haven’t had a chance to start because I’m still enjoying neighbor Zeek Taylor’s autobiographical Out of the Delta.

AMUSEd Fine Art & Extraordinary Books in Eureka Springs is Ashley’s brainchild as well, showcasing her books and the art of her co-author Patrick Kinkade and illustrator Zac Kinkade (yes, brother and nephew to Thomas Kinkade).

Finally … I cannot say enough complimentary things about Roxanne Beck. I’m pretty sure my works are not her favorite niche of writing, but she braved the hard science in the science fiction, and meticulously copyread all three book manuscripts. At my request, she also acted as book editor, offering wise and salient suggestions, asking relevant questions about audience and market, and in one case calling into question the entire ending of the series as I had written it. She was right, and I rewrote it!

Roxanne, in addition to being an enormously talented vocalist, screen voice talent, songwriter and performing artist, is the author of the lovely Caterpillarland children’s book. (I love that it has a strong female hero who rescues others even when she herself is lost.)

She is also the screenwriter of the short, “Miss Famous,” which became a segment of the anthology motion picture The Heydey of the Insensitive Bastards. Not to drop names or anything, but it stars Kristen Wiig and features Jimmy Kimmel.

The screen grab below is from the Acknowledgments page of the Kindle edition of any of the three books, and of course also appears in all three paperbacks.