Celebrate National Read a Book Day: September 6, 2024!

Larada Horner-Miller

2 years ago

Woman reading - National Read a Book Day

National Read a Book Day was Friday, September 6, and I want to share what book I’m reading with you. I haven’t finished it yet, but it’s a page-turner! Why is reading so important to me? What are you reading?

Right now, my newest book is The Cemetery of Untold Stories by Julia Alvarez. I saw her at the Santa Fe International Literary Festival in May and bought it. She enticed me with the title and her sharing about this unusual title.

The protagonist, a writer, has numerous unfinished manuscripts she plans to bury in the cemetery of untold stories. Unusual concept? Yes, but as a writer I relate! I know there’s twists and turns coming and I wait with anticipation!

My Untold Stories—Almost

For decades, two of my manuscripts lay in my computer, whispering to me, “Finish me. Come back. Please come back!” Finally, I did and self-published them in 2014 and 2015. But I still have some I’ve let sit and not finish yet.

Right now, I have several books in the queue: three more poetry books in my Navigating Life’s Journey Through Poetry series, three-four in a poetry book series—poems I wrote with my students, a how to write a biography book, another book of This Tumbleweed Landed poems and a women’s fiction I wrote in 2016.

Here’s a list of poems I want to add to the continuation of This Tumbleweed Landed, #2:

Dad’s smooth swing of saddle up on a horse
Grandma Dickerson’s embroidered edge for towels & washcloths
Mom’s embroidery of t-towels
My hope chest
435 cattle—12 trucks inspected and lined up when we sold out because of the drought
Prince Albert in a can all over the ranch
The distinctive ring of the school bell
Mom’s cedar chest
“Taking up food” vs. serving something in a pan
Granddad & Grandma Horner’s slide night after one of their trips
Dad telling Maynard Bowen dancing was like clapping your feet
Folsom Falls adventures
Mom’s Christmas fruitcake with Granddad Horner’s sherry
Phrases from Mom and Dad – loaded for bear, faunching at the bit, it’s raining like a cow peeing on a flat rock
Doing the Bunny Hop at midnight at the Branson dances as a child
Dad & Millard Warner—best friends in high school, then us living next door to each other
Travis Patton—exchanged water for fresh eggs

I have a couple of short stories that I’ve played with and had fun writing, but I haven’t published yet. So many unfinished stories to share!

Celebrating National Read a Book Day, why is reading so important?

Reading has been a passion of mine for most of my life. From the moment I learned that letters strung together created words, I saw worlds unfold before me. I remember sitting on our porch swing in the summer and reading. Because we didn’t have a large family library, I depended on our school library and the library in Trinidad. So, I re-read Nancy Drew books and thoroughly enjoyed them, even when I knew what was coming.

I have kept at least one book going my whole life. Right now, I have three going: