Announcing Bryce David Mannix

If you are Facebook friends with Teresa Mannix, you already know her new son was born Jan. 9. She reported, "He was 6 lbs 14 oz and is doing well." For lots of cute pictures, make friends with Teresa.

Julie Campbell's book, The Horse in Virginia won the honor for the People's Choice Award for Nonfiction during the 2011 Literary Awards at the Library of Virginia. Congratulations Julie! (photo by Cynthia Price)

Ruth Doumlele publishes on Smashwords

Ruth's book The Randolph Women & Their Men is now available for immediate sampling and sale in multiple e-book formats. The book was formatted long-distance by a free-lancer and published on Smashwords. Check it out: www.smashwords.com/books/view/93969.

VPW on Nebraska Pre-Tour

Picasa album with captions

In Memoriam Barbara Crookshanks

Virginia Johnson sent a note to let us all know that her mother and our long-time member, Barbara Malone Crookshanks, died on Saturday, Sept 3, at Mary Washington Hospital in Fredericksburg. She was 82 and passed away following a brief illness.

Preliminary arrangements have been made with Mullins and Thompson Funeral Home. The service will be held at the Fredericksburg Chapel at 10:30 on Friday morning. "She enjoyed her career in journalism and appreciated being a member of the Virginia Press Women," Virginia wrote.

Mrs. Crookshanks was VPW's 2010 Communicator of Achievement, which honored her long journalism career including work at the Ladies Home Journal, the Free Lance-Star, the Fredericksburg/Tideland Times, and Virginia Horse Racing: Triumphs of the Turf, the latter a book published in 2008 by the History Press, which she co-authored with her daughter.

"I used to write stories for the Fredericksburg Times in high school with the understanding that she would show me/explain to me edits. After a while I didn't need very many," Virginia wrote.  "She also wrote stories exclusively for the Central Rappahannock Regional Library's history page as well as the FLS's Town and County in very recent years. We were contemplating a book on coaching (stage coaches, etc.) in the 18th and 19th centuries at the time of her passing."

Communicator of Achievement Nomination

Ellen Brown stays in limelight

Here she is on CBS Morning News Saturday. Visit her book's Facebook page to keep up with the buzz about Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind: A Bestseller's Odyssey. Ellen will be keynote speaker at VPW's Fall Conference Oct. 1 at the University of Richmond, according to an announcement from the conference chair, Linda Evans.