Delivered: My New, Expanded “Birds of Magnolia Cemetery” Book!

When UPS left this box at my door on Sept. 12 it felt like a late birthday gift or early Christmas present! 

Whoop! My books are here! 

I worked with My Book Printer of Madison Heights, Michigan on my latest publishing project. 

In 2023 My Book Printer featured my "Birds of Magnolia Cemetery" book. Click here to read the interview. 

Magnolia Cemetery is a beautiful Victorian rural cemetery on the outskirts of Charleston that opened in 1850.

In 2014 I published a book that showcases the fine monuments and landscape of this final resting place of so many prominent Charlestonians and regular folks too. 

That book is titled "In the Arms of Angels: Magnolia Cemetery- Charleston's Treasure of Mystery, History and Artistry."

And in 2022 I wrote "Stories from the Underground: The Churchyards of Charleston." 

Back to the birds...For a while, I had been thinking of doing an update to my first book, 2011’s “The Birds of Magnolia Cemetery: Charleston’s Secret Bird Sanctuary.” 

So beginning in May of this year the work began. I started laying out the pages in Adobe InDesign. This is the software I’ve used for writing and designing each of my books since the first one that I wrote in PowerPoint (a really long PowerPoint). In 2011 a local printer transformed the manuscript into a format so it could be printed and bound. 

I wanted my first book to also be set up in InDesign. And I also wanted, using Adobe Photoshop, to try to make the photographs sharper. So that’s what I did this summer, working on it, page by page, for three or more hours on most weekdays and between trips to Boston and our big Colorado-New Mexico trip in June. 

Before too long in the reformatting process, I decided this project would be a second edition “Birds of Magnolia Cemetery” book. 

I decided to keep the same image on the cover since it has so much meaning to me. Why? Buy the book and find out! 

Note the “Second Edition” on the thick branch below the Wood Stork. Under my name I mention two other cemetery books I have written. 

My “Birds of Magnolia Cemetery” Book Gets Renewed Attention!

 A few months ago I was contacted by Megan Parak from My Book Printer who wanted to interview me for her company’s “Author Spotlight” in May 2023.  Click here to read the story. 

The interview was about my first book, "The Birds of Magnolia Cemetery: Charleston's Secret Bird Sanctuary," which I self-published in 2011. Learn more about this book here. 

We did a phone interview a while back and as promised her piece dropped today. I couldn’t be happier with how she put it all together. And she put it on the company’s Facebook, Instagram and Twitter sites. 

My Book Printer has printed several of my books over the years. I definitely recommend this Detroit area company to fellow writers. Charleston-based Palmetto Publishing is also very good. 

the article is in the Q&A format. I actually teach this interview format in my SC State feature writing class. I have a new high-quality example to share with my students! 

The piece includes this photo from my book. It is of a Yellow-crowned Night Heron flying low over one of the ponds at Magnolia Cemetery. Three years after publication of "Birds of Magnolia Cemetery," I put out a follow-up book titled "In the Arms of Angels: Magnolia Cemetery- Charleston's Treasure of History Mystery and Artistry." 

I sell all of my books on Amazon and will sign and sell books directly. If interested, see my Amazon author's page or email me at birdseyeviewspublications@gmail.com.  

Thanksgiving Message: Don't Take Life for Granted

On the eve of Thanksgiving 2015 I am uploading to my computer photographs I took yesterday at Charleston's beautiful and historic Magnolia Cemetery, about which I have written two books.

I am always touched by the gravesite of little Annie Kerr Aiken who was not quite 3 years old when the throat disease diphtheria took your young life in 1856. Passersby often place small toys and stuffed animals at this site, or as I saw yesterday, coins. Thirteen cents someone placed here- bad luck?