A Word from Curt
We’re on a journey and our map is:
- To stay curious.
- Continue to be amazed at life.
- Share Remarkable* Stories with our friends and readers. *A remarkable sound: a dueling duet between a Cardinal and Mockingbird in our backyard. I wonder how we’d react if we’d never heard the songs of these classic Southern songsters?
In this week’s post, I want to give an overview of several exciting upcoming projects coming from The Creekbank.
- As the Crow Flies is now winging its way in every direction. We are so pleased at the reception As the Crow Flies has received. If you haven’t bought your copy, you can purchase it from Amazon or on the Creekbank website. It is now available in trade paperback ($15), large print ($20) and as an e-book. We are especially excited about the upcoming release of the Audible version of As the Crow Flies. Actress/narrator Whitney Ann Jenkins has done a superb job bringing Missouri Cotton to life and telling her story.
Listen to a fifteen-minute audio sample of As the Crow Flies.
Read a preview sample chapter of As the Crow Flies.
2. As the Crow Flies, is the final book in the Westport Trilogy*. Our next novel, with the working title of No Man’s Land: Louisiana 1918, will link As the Crow Flies (1881-82) with A Spent Bullet (1941).
No Man’s Land: Louisiana 1918 will begin on the last day of the Great War and follow the lives of three Louisianans, Hunter Moore, L.B. Reed, and Jessica May. The book’s premise is “What if I told you a story about three young people, returning from war with a terrible shared secret, to discover their beloved Pineywoods had changed as much as they had?”
I don’t have a completion date yet. Writing a novel is a tedious, frustrating, wonderful process. We’ll keep you posted on No Man’s Land: Louisiana 1918.
*The other Westport Trilogy novels, The Wayfaring Stranger (1849) and A Good Place (1862) are standalone books. i.e. you don’t have to read one to enjoy the others.
3. Going to Africa. I’m returning to Africa for the month of September. (DeDe has returned to the classroom and will not go on this trip but hopefully has another trip back to the area where we lived and worked for three years.
I’ll spend two weeks at Uganda Baptist Seminary teaching the Book of Acts. I feel compelled to take advantage of the opportunity to pour my life into the hearts of pastors from seven surrounding countries. I’m excited about this ripple-effect ministry.
I’ll spend the remainder of the trip traveling to northern Uganda to see our fellow missionaries, national churches and their precious pastors, plus the ongoing work in the refugee camps. I want to drink water from the wells we helped drill and sit in the churches that have grown out from the mango trees beside the wells.
I plan on carrying nothing but my backpack, tent, and every copy of the Bible and audio players that I can. We’ll keep you posted on how you can help carry the Word of God to these souls in their heart language.
Finally, I’m working on two side projects that will appear as e-books over the summer.
A Pineywoods Manifesto: Field Notes to the Full Life is simply a summation of my philosophy of the family values, culture, and faith that have made me the man I am. I’m writing it for my grandsons as well as the many young men who have no male role model to teach me how to be a man.
I’ll begin blogging this book next week. (This will allow you to add your two-bits and make suggestions on chapters). My initial chapters are:
- Shake like a Man
- Let your word be your bond
- Be kinder than necessary
- Stand up for what’s right even if you’re standing alone.
You can follow, and be involved, at www.creekbank.net/blog.
Secondly, I learned too much, and suffered two deeply, during my depression year of 2017, not to share it.
The loss of several dear friends recently to suicide has compelled me to complete In the Wilderness: A Memoir of Depression.
We’ll publish it as an e-book and Audible edition and let the Lord take it from there.
That’s enough for today. Please pray that I’ll be focused on these projects amid the busy, wonderful life I have.
Thank you for caring enough to read this Story Letter.
You peruse archived copies of previous Story Letters here.
Gratefully,
Curt Iles
P.S. If you’ve read As the Crow Flies (so many of you have sent nice notes and emails) please go to Amazon and write a brief honest review. That is the greatest thing you can do to help us.