New Book Nears Completion!

The holiday season was productive for me as I recently completed the first draft of a new book I have been working on since summer 2019.

With the principal writing and layout in the books (ha!) the focus now is the arduous but essential task of creating the 220 (and counting) page book's index listing all the names and organizations mentioned. Then comes designing the front and back covers. I'd like to have a jacket with this book, my fifth. That will depend on the cost. 

Here is my manuscript's first page showing the title, "The Churchyards of Charleston: Stories From the Underground." 

What I'm doing is documenting in words and photographs Charleston's rich history as seen through the prism of its many old and beautiful churches and their graveyards. 

On the peninsula there are 13 churches with churchyards (or graveyards) next to them and one Jewish synagogue with its cemetery several blocks away, per the Hebrew custom that spiritual leaders should not walk among the dead. 

Neighborhood Hawk Encounter

 

Holy Hawk!

 A visit to downtown Charleston last week resulted in a memorable bird encounter. 

I had seen a story and a few photographs in the Post and Courier about how the repairs at Second Presbyterian Church on Meeting Street (a lightning fire had damaged the steeple) included a fancy new weather vane that had just been installed. 

I noticed right away something else was checking out the 24 karat gold leaf directional vane.