Author: aencoker

  • What the Writers Guild Has Done for Me

    I guess I never really thought about joining a writers guild until I was invited to speak at a guild meeting last year.  My eyes were opened.  You see, I always thought a writers guild was something like a book club or a quilting guild where you got together to write.  I never wanted to…

  • Still More from the Big House on Willow Branch Road

    The old Calhoun farmhouse, named I suppose for the owner and landlord Mr. Calhoun, had a long driveway maybe a quarter mile long, or so it seems.  Actually, it was only about 100 yards.  My brother Allen and I would walk to the mailbox with Mama, and sometimes we walked down the road to visit…

  • Why Grandparents Seem Crazy

    Grandparents sometimes get a bad rap.  Parents complain about the grands spoiling their babies, giving them too many things, feeding them the wrong things, indulging their whims, and showing up too often to visit.  Maybe we grandparents are guilty of all of the above, but there is a really good reason. You see, we know…

  • More from the big house on Willow Branch

      One night my brother Allen and I woke up to a commotion in the hallway outside our bedroom door in the big house.  The light in the kitchen across the hall was on, and we could see Mama in her nightgown and Daddy in his boxer shorts and work boots.    We must have…

  • When I Was Two (The House That Built Me)

    When I was about two years old we lived in an upstairs apartment in Tyler.  I can remember wood floors and watching the TV game show “Concentration” with Mama while she folded clothes.  I remember my brother Allen being a baby, and I also remember looking out of our second story window to see the…