Creola's Moonbeam (31 page)

“
By Harriette Ophelia Butlar Newberry
.”

I quickly checked the cover, peeling back the
Autographed Copy
 
sticker. Sure enough, hidden underneath was my full name. Not Honey Newberry, as on my other books, but Harriette Ophelia Butlar Newberry, an altogether different person!

As if on cue, the doorbell rang. There stood the postman.

“Sign here, ma’am.” He handed me a registered letter. I opened it.

Dear Honey,

You know all too well my beloved aunt, so you understand that you now have an important assignment. Aunt Beatrice and I wish you the best of luck in selling your newest book. She insists you have your publisher print thousands more copies.

I’ll look forward to a glowing report from you at a future luncheon meeting.

Sincerely, Cynthia

Before I could catch my breath, the postman returned from his truck with not one, not two, but three cases of
Honey’s Beeswax
. He kindly took them down to the basement, where I stored them next to my stash of promotional copies for
Creola’s Moonbeam
.

I looked at the stacked boxes, hands on hips. “You really got me this time, Beatrice! Dear lady, I do thank you with all my being. And I promise, yes, I’ll get the book out there for the world to enjoy. The
books
. Plural.
Honey’s Beeswax
and
Creola’s Moonbeam
.
Our
books. Yours, mine, and Crellie’s.”

I knew what I had to do. I walked out into the middle of my front yard. A warm spring night had fallen. I looked up at the moon. To my delight, it was full. Then, without concern for what the neighbors might think, I turned not one, not two, but three cartwheels.

“Thank you, Beatrice,” I shouted each time my feet fanned over my head. “Thank you, Crellie.”

Falling back onto the grass, I gazed at the moon. There she was, Creola Moon, all light. Silhouetted against her face was a whimsical shadow, a woman doing a cartwheel. Beatrice. The woman of contradiction and mystery, Beatrice had merged with Creola.

I understood. I would gather my own group of Dear Ones. I would entertain them with my tales, encourage and nurture their talents, and look on as their dreams come true.

I would become their Beatrice, their Creola. I would invite their spirits to join in our circle.

Perhaps, I would even pursue new dreams of my own.

Milam McGraw Propst has had careers as a newspaper reporter and feature writer and also in public relations with national companies as well as a variety of volunteer positions.

Highlights for the last several years include the publication of her three books with Mercer University Press:
 
A Flower Blooms on Charlotte Street, It May Not Leave a Scar,
and
Ociee on Her Own
.

Creola’s Moonbeam
is her first novel for BelleBooks.

Charlotte Street
brought honors to Milam as Georgia Author of the Year for first novel and a nomination for the Townsend Prize for fiction, and nationally, it won the Parents’ Choice Fiction Recommendation. As well, the book was made into a motion picture,
The Adventures of Ociee Nash
, starring Mare Winningham, Keith Carradine and Ty Pennington. The film premiered at Atlanta’s Fox Theater on June 1, 2003.

Produced and directed by Amy McGary and Kristen McGary, the film was released nationally in 2004, with the DVD now available. The film introduces Skyler Day as Ociee along with a number of noted Georgia stage actors, including Tom Key, Anthony Rodriquez, Janice Akers, and John Lawhorn.

Milam’s short story “Nestle” was published in the March 2004
 
issue of
Atlanta Magazine
.

Born in Memphis, Tennessee, Milam has also lived in Birmingham, New Orleans, Springfield, Massachusetts, and Atlanta.
 
Married to Jamey Propst, her college sweetheart at the University of Alabama, she has been blessed with three children: Amanda, William, and Jay, and thanks to William and his wife, Abigail, two grandsons, Loftin and Emmett. Notably, the children and Milam were extras in the movie while Jamey netted a small role with some six lines.

Milam currently enjoys public speaking about her books and the film. Contact her via BelleBooks at [email protected].

This thanking folks can be tricky.
 
Especially for me. My paralyzing fear of omitting the names of people supportive and dear kept me from including any acknowledgements whatsoever in my last book, “Ociee on Her Own.” That, I truly regret. So here goes.

Many thanks to my fellow authors, Jerry Lee Davis, Jackie White, and Jackie Cooper, with kudos to Jackie Cooper for lining me up with BelleBooks, and with apologies to Jerry Lee for not listening when he made that same suggestion some two years prior!

Thank you, Deb Smith, along with the other amazing women of BelleBooks for believing in Honey Newberry enough to invite me into your circle of authors. Thank you to Martha Crockett for designing ‘Creola’s’ lovely cover. Thank you to Haywood Smith, again to Jackie and Jackie, and to Charlene Ann Baumbich, Julie Cannon, and Joyce Dixon for your generous remarks about Honey and her fictional family and friends.

Friends. This writer would still have a file full of unused ideas were it not for my real life friends who encouraged me to put words on paper. Thank you, Pam Weeks and Jackie Brown for your prayers, for proofreading “Creola’s Moonbeam” and my other three books, and for your years of faith-filled cheerleading.

Thank you also to Betty Ann Colley and Betty George, and to Marc Jolley, Jeff Stives, Carol Lee Lorenzo, and Kristen McGary for always believing in me.

Thank you, Mary and Marvin Brantley, for often introducing me (hope blooms eternal) as “The Margaret Mitchell of Cherrywood Lane” and to Sally Miller for recording, so beautifully, my stories for Books for the Blind.

Thank you to the Marist Moms including Ave, Starr, Ginger, Mary Alyce, Ann, Judi, Linda, Sandy, Patty, Sarah, Jody, Marilyn, and Gail. Also there’s the Westfield Garden Club to note, the bridge club, Patty, Kay, Diane, Jean, and JoAnne, our Scripture study class, Clare, AND the ladies of the Artists Way, especially Beverly Key and Janet Wells.

 
I surely cannot leave out Kristi Hyde, the Winstons, the Carrolls, the Mittigas, the Lynch or the Davis family, the Jannettas, the Whitmans or the Robnetts, or the Lundys, the Schweitzers . . . or the Birmingham loyal, the Elliotts, the Crums, the Whetstones, the Farrell family, or Diane and Barbara . . . or certainly not the Walthers or the Ekiss family. Oh dear, and there’s my beloved Aunt Martha McGraw. Thank you, each and
everyone
!

With appreciation and love to Kate and Lou, my teachers, my dear ones, and Honey’s most ardent advocates.

I conclude by expressing much love to my family, to Jamey, and to Jay, to Amanda, and to Abigail and William, with bunches of kisses for their two little boys, our precious grandsons, Loftin Alan, who’s a big brother now four, and for Emmett James, who’s grinning his way to age one.

—Milam McGraw Propst