By Melanie Tucker
of The Daily Times Staff

Out among the saw grass and salt flats of southeast Georgia, railroader John C. Calhoun couldn’t help but wonder how on earth this Empire of the South rose from such lackluster beginnings.

As a bridge inspector, he worked for years with the Central of Georgia Railway and later Norfolk Southern, getting to know the coast of Georgia extremely well.

“I spent a good deal of time down there with the alligators, snakes and mosquitoes,” Calhoun, 73 said. “I built and maintained bridges out in the boondocks. It just struck me, how in the world could a state like Georgia, which is the largest state east of the Mississippi — how could a state like Georgia spring from saw grass and salt flats. It amazed me this could happen.”

As he worked and lived in what is one of the 13 original states, Calhoun visited numerous historic sites, state parks, the barrier islands and other areas of interest. He learned all there was to know about Englishman James Edward Oglethorpe’s voyage here in 1732 aboard the frigate Anne along with a freighter, Volant, loaded down with supplies for the colonists who would settle this new colony in America.

Oglethorpe had the idea to bring mostly prisoners with him, but there were few of them who made the trip. As Calhoun put it, “People flocked in from everywhere.”

Georgia fast facts
Historical facts about this period in our nation’s humble beginnings are part of a book Calhoun wrote which is now being made available. Called “Reluctant Empire,” this novel weaves together factual accounts of the early Georgia colony with the help of some fictitious characters who leave London with hopes of better opportunities. His main characters are thief John Gentry and Millie Arbaugh, a recent inhabitant of the debtor’s prison who he befriends on the ocean voyage. The story of the Creek Indians who lived there first and the arrival later of the Scots give the reader a glimpse of how this nation grew from the ground up.

Once in America, Calhoun’s characters interact with historical figures like Mary Musgrove, and John and Charles Wesley. It is Calhoun’s hope that by presenting history this way, readers will be entertained but also gain insight into how Georgia, named for England’s King George II, came to be what it is today.

Learn more about “Reluctant Empire“

Faith continues to push Lyla Winn in her struggle with cancer. Winn has written about her personal walk with God in a book of inspirational prose “I Dare to Share God’s Gifts” published by Tate Publishing.
The 66-year-old first-time author will autograph copies of her book at book signings scheduled for Tuesday at Riverview Inn and Feb. 16 at Hastings Book Store.

Winn’s first encounter with cancer came about five years ago with a breast cancer diagnosis. After a short remission, the cancer spread to her bones and liver.

Doctors told Winn about two years ago that she only had about four or six months to live.

But, Winn thinks God has granted her more time “to get the word out.”

Carolyn Jackson, family relative, said the book endeavor “has kept Lyla going.”

Tate Publishing also is marketing a narrative audio version of the soft-cover 385-page book.

Winn feels the swift action of the publishing company to get her book into print has been an intervention from above saying everything happens for a reason, and God is using me as a tool.”

Winn and her husband, Charles have been married 46 years and they have four children and six grandchildren.

Copies of Winn’s book will be available for people to purchase at the Riverview Inn and Hastings Book Store events.

Ann Wallace covers education/religion. She can be reached at 245-0287 or at annwallace@theleafchronicle.com.

Learn more about “I Dare to Share God’s Gifts“

 About six to eight years ago, a Perryton, Texas, woman began working on her first novel. In January, that novel was released to the public by a publishing company. Elaine Littau, a church secretary by day, wrote Nan’s Journey, a novel set in the 1800s about a girl who is abused by her stepparents.

To get away from the situation, she and her 5-yearold brother run away into the Colorado wildernes. “That’s kind of the premise of the book,” Littau said. “The overall theme is forgiveness and bravery.” Littau said she had always enjoyed reading books by Zane Gray, Grace Livingston Hill and Louis Lamour. Not only that, but she also was intrigued by the stories her parents told her.

“My mom and dad, they were in their 40s when I was born, so they had actually moved into Kansas and Oklahoma and Colorado in covered wagons as children,” she explained. “They would tell me their old times and just what it was like to live in those days.” One day, Littau had an idea for a story, and she started to write it down.

However, the process was a long one due to self doubts. “I would write a little bit, and then I would think I was kind of stupid to write a book, and I’d put it away for like a year and then find it again and start on it again,” she said. Finally, however, she recieved help from a friend who asked to read what she had written. Upon reading what Littau had finished, the friend asked her to keep sending chapters until the novel was complete.

And after that, she said, another friend who had been reading it told Littau she had a niece working for a publishing company, Tate Publishing, in Mustang, Okla. It seemed the company often worked with new authors, and the friend encouraged Littau to submit her manuscript.

“They receive about 20,000 (manuscripts) a year and take about 4 percent of what comes in. I didn’t know it was that big of a long shot, or I might not have had the nerve to do it,” Littau said. “Ignorance is bliss.” Despite the odds, Littau’s novel was accepted. “My kids thought something had happened to my husband. I called them on the phone and started bawling,” Littau said. “They weren’t expecting that.”

After a long process in which she looked over the editing, looked at book cover ideas, and listened to voices for the audio book, her book was sent to her in published form. It was accepted Feb. 6, 2007, she said, and she received her copy in October. The book was actually released to the public in January.

So far, she said, she has received positive reviews from everyone who has read it, and she has sold 500 copies in 22 states. “I haven’t heard anyone say anything bad about it, yet,” she said. “They’ve seemed to all enjoy it.” One of the challenges, she added, has been the marketing of her novel. Since she’s not a well known author, the book is only available online through sites like walmart.com and amazon.com, though it can also be ordered through book stores. “The marketing thing is the most daunting,” she explained.

“Even if you have a publisher, you still have to do stuff to promote your books. You actually have to talk to people.” Recently, Littau did a book signing at a truck stop in Meade as part of the promotion of her novel. Coming up, she will be doing a book signing at the Barnes and Noble in Amarillo, Texas, and at Hastings in Liberal. And despite the challenges, she said writing is something she plans to continue.

Littau lives with her husband of almost 33 years on a piece of land just south of Perryton, and her three sons are grown and married. “I’m an empty nester and a church secretary. You only work until like 3 in the afternoon, then you have a lot of time after that. I thought, ‘Well, this is going to be boring for the rest of my life,’” she said. Now, however, she tries to write a little each day. She finished the sequel to Nan’s Journey much more quickly than the first, she said, and currently has six ideas for other books in her head, with three of four of them in the works.

“Honestly, I’m pretty vanilla,” she said. “I just had a big dream.” Littau will have a book signing at Hastings from 1 to 3 p.m. Feb. 23. The store will have some of her books in stock, and Littau will bring extras along with some copies of the audio book

Learn more about “Nan’s Journey“

Julia M. Dendinger News-Bulletin Staff Writer; jdendinger@news-bulletin.com

Some people are born storytellers. When Ben Steinlage tells the tale of how he met his wife, Sandy, you know he is one of them. After working three weeks of 18-hour shifts without a day off as a manager of a cocktail lounge and restaurant in Las Vegas, Nev., Ben told his boss he needed a rest.

“I told him I wasn’t coming in the next day. I didn’t care if the placed burned down,” he remembers. When Ben awoke hungry and broke after 12 hours of sleep, he knew exactly what to do.

“I knew if I went to the restaurant, they would feed me for free. So, I’m sitting there having a drink and my boss comes up and tells me he’s hired my newest waitress,” he said. “Well I thought ‘that’s just great.’ She’s probably 15, ugly as sin, with a huge wart and hairs out of it down to her knees.”

So Ben went into the restaurant to check out the newest staff member. “She comes bopping over and asks to take my order. I explained who I was and told her I’d start with a cup of coffee,” he said. “She comes back with a cup and a pot of coffee. She leans across the table, puts the cup down and then leans over to pour the coffee.”

And then it happened. “The button of her blouse popped off, hit me right on the end of the nose and landed in the cup,” Ben said. “I looked down for the button and then back up and I’m staring at nothing but cleavage.”

As Sandy snatched her blouse shut and ran from the room, Ben said, he realized it was all over. “I thought to myself, ‘I’m the weed, and she’s the lawnmower.’ Shoot, I wasn’t even looking for a girlfriend, let alone a wife,” he says.

They did indeed get married, but found out that, as each other’s second spouses, they were still too young. “We are actually each other’s second and fourth spouses,” Ben said. “We’re much happier the second time around.”

Ben, who has been writing since the age of 8, can tell stories other than humorous personal anecdotes. He has recently become a published author, putting out his first book “Want To Go West Lady?” through Tate Publishing and Enterprises, a company out of Mustang, Okla.

The 254-page novel combines his love of writing with his interest in the Civil War period and a bit of family history. The blurb on the back of the book promises that you will laugh and cry along with the three teen protagonists as they see their world change during the Civil War, the subsequent Reconstruction and then follow them into twentieth century Oregon and California.

There’s a good reason for that, Ben says. “I was laughing and crying when I wrote this,” he said. “People will tell me that they are crying so hard they can barely see the page. And I’ll tell them I cried there too.”

Although a seasoned writer, Ben never pursued publication. That was where Sandy came in. “In the old days, you wrote everything out longhand or on a typewriter. When you were done, it went into file 13,” he said, in reference to the trash can.

Sandy had different ideas. “I thought he was very good, so I kept a lot of what he wrote,” she said. Unfortunately, or fortunately, during the 15 years they were apart, Sandy’s third husband found and burned most of Ben’s manuscripts.

He laughs at that. “I thought, yes, he finally did something right,” he said. But Ben finally succumbed to the pressure.

“Sandy kept telling me I should be published. My teachers had told me that. My mother told me that,” he said. “Up until now, I’d written mostly poems and short stories around 10,000 to 30,000 words. Novellas, I guess you would call them.

“But publishing houses won’t take collections of short stories unless you are well known. And my mother, who’s in her late 80s, had been wanting me to write something based on the family history. She’s been researching our genealogy for the last 20, 30 years.”

A month later, the book was complete. “Since I’m semi-retired, I could write 30 to 40 pages a day if there weren’t any interruptions,” Ben said. “When I write, I just start typing — there’s no outline. I laugh, I cry. Sometimes I have to get up and take a walk.

“When I wrote the ending, I told Sandy, ‘I don’t like this ending, but that’s where it’s going, I didn’t want to do it, but …’”

After that difficult ending was written, Sandy spent a year shopping the manuscript around to various publishers. While the digital age has made certain aspects of pitching a book easier, it’s still hard work.

“You used to have to submit a hard copy of the manuscript. Now you just e-mail it to them; most places prefer it that way,” she said. “We submitted a lot. Sometimes we wouldn’t hear anything back, and if we did it was because they weren’t looking for anything in that particular genre.”

Both offered a word of caution to young authors trying to get book published. “Agents sometimes aren’t the best thing to have,” Sandy said.

Ben agreed, saying that some of the less scrupulous agents will charge $10,000 to $15,000 to edit a book and then even more money to promote the piece. “Unfortunately, that’s not uncommon,” he said.

Ben and Sandy agree that the publishing company he ended up with is a good one. “I wasn’t hearing back from them, so I hunted up the phone number and called them,” Sandy said. “The girl I talked to was so nice. She told me the company didn’t accept multiple submissions from authors and Ben had two.

“So, I told her he would submit just the one. I talked to her several times — she was so nice. Eventually they read the book, liked it and wanted to publish it.”

There was just one catch. Tate Publishing is a Christian publishing company, and they were concerned about the one time Ben used “damned” in the book. Ben mulled it over and took the word out. “If there is going to be violence, sex and swearing in a book, it should be for a very good reason,” he said. “The story doesn’t always need it. I’d rather keep the reading on a PG level.”

The decision was a wise one, garnering Ben’s honest, straightforward writing style accolades and glowing reviews. “Everyone says it’s a good book. I don’t know; I haven’t read it,” he said. “I don’t go back and read my stuff because you think, ‘Oh, I should have said this or that.’ Or ‘That,s stupid. Why did I put that in?’ It’s probably best I don’t read the book.”

One reader’s response touched Ben and Sandy deeply. During last year’s Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta, they decided to head up to a friend’s house in Madrid and to a book signing.

“It wasn’t planned. We just did it on a whim,” Ben said. “Then late one night in November, we got a call from a lady. She knew I was from New Mexico, so she called directory assistance in every town on I-25 starting in Santa Fe and going south. They live in the Mountainair area.

“She said thanks for writing this story. I told her, ‘Thanks for buying the book.’ You know, I’ve read thousands of books. I would love to meet some of the authors, but I’ve never tracked one down.”

The 63-year-old woman finally revealed the significance of her call. Ben said she told him she had a reading disorder and had never read a book cover to cover, until now. “That right there makes it all worth it,” Ben said.

And his fans are prodding him to continue writing. A 79-year-old woman from Estancia read the book and loved it. “When she finished it, she told me there was just one problem,” Ben said. “She wanted to know ‘who’s Edgar?’ Well, he’s the guy who married Ida, but you really don’t know much about him. So I said, yes, we do need an introduction to Edgar.”

Right now, Ben has seven unpublished manuscripts, three of which are sequels to “Want to go West, Lady?” Sandy is giving them a final edit, before submitting them.

Ben encourages young writers to give it their all in the world. “You look at me. I got a book published. And if I can do it, anyone can,” he says with a laugh. “Now I can tell kids that you are only limited by your desire.”

Learn more about “Want to Go West Lady?”

By Ina Hughs (Contact)
Sunday, February 3, 2008

Though now in his mid-80s, Dr. Curtis D. Benton, Jr., a local eye surgeon, still practices medicine and spends his leisure time on the golf course, shooting in the 70s. He’s written a book about his favorite game, how he started as a kid and ended up one of the elite few chosen for the American Senior Golf Association, playing tournaments all over the world. “Golf: Playing with Some Great Pros and Many Great Guys” (Tate Publishing) includes chapters on Bing Crosby and Bob Hope, Billy Graham, match-ups in Morocco, Monterey, at the Masters, and, of course, playing in Scotland where the game was born.

Learn more about “Golf: Playing with Some Great Pros and Many Great Guys“