Becky Mushko, the third generation owner of her family farm in Union Hall, Virginia, loves the history and culture of the Blue Ridge region. (She's pictured at left, in the background, with neighbors who have come over to visit and enjoy the horses on her farm.)
Becky is a 1997 Pushcart Prize nominee, a three-time winner of the Sherwood Anderson Short Story Contest, a five-time winner of the Lonesome Pine Short Story Contest, and a two-time category winner in the Bulwer-Lytton Contest (1996 “Worst Western” and 2008 “Vile Pun”). Her novel, Patches on the Same Quilt, won the 2001 Smith Mountain Arts Council Fiction Award. Collections of her columns and stories include Peevish Advice, More Peevish Advice, The Girl Who Raced Mules & Other Stories, and Where There's A Will.
From 1994 until 2005, she wrote for Blue Ridge Traditions. Her humor column, “Peevish Advice,” ran for ten years, first in Blue Ridge Traditions and later in the Smith Mountain Eagle. Her work appears in A Cup of Comfort for Writers and It Was a Dark and Stormy Night.
For three decades, she taught English at the middle school, high school, and college level. She also served as the 2006-07 writer-in-residence for Roanoke (VA) County Schools. She now travels the state conducting writing workshops for adults and teens, and storytelling for young people at libraries, literary festivals, schools, and wri
ters' conferences.
She holds memberships in the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, the League of American Pen Women, the Franklin County Historical Society, the Virginia Writers Club, Valley Writers, and Lake Writers. She also serves on the Board of Trustees for the Franklin County Library.
Becky lives in Penhook with her husband, horses, dogs, and cats. Her hobbies include walking with her dogs, trail riding, blogging, and reading.
Learn more about Becky at her web site: www.beckymushko.com
Author photos by Amy Tate
About the Artist
Bruce Rae--a master teacher for thirty-two years with certification in visual arts, history, creative writing, and science--has created art with wood, paint, and drawing media for over fifty years. Retiring from high school teaching in 1998, he moved from Michigan to Smith Mountain Lake where he continues to create both art and literature. Best-known for carving sculptural novelty fish for Smith Mountain Lake's Little Gallery, he has also carved a series of totemic and spirit masks (as shown in the picture above) in the Native American traditions and has written the stories behind them. His writing-in-progress covers many genres--essays, editorial commentaries, correspondence, poetry, memoirs, novels, folklore, and children's stories. He often illustrates his writing and sometimes provides illustrations for the published work of fellow Lake Writers, as he has done for Becky Mushko's Ferradiddledumday.
NEW CHILDREN'S BOOK
BY BECKY MUSHKO
Illustrated by Bruce Rae
Featuring a Study & Discussion Guide
LITERATURE - GEOGRAPHY - HISTORY - SCIENCE
Suitable for 4th - 6th Grade students
or Storytime selection for 1st-3rd Grades
ISBN 978-0-9842449-1-1
Paperback 5-1/2 x 8-1/2
56 Pages 32 Illustrations $7.00
Gillie--a skilled spinner of wool--leads a charmed life high in the Blue Ridge Mountains until a hailstorm strikes. With their cash crop destroyed and taxes due, Gillie and her pa risk losing their farm. Then a strange little man gives her the power to spin hay into gold. Years later, when he demands his payment, Gillie doesn't know what to do.
WHAT AUTHORITIES IN CHILDREN'S LITERATURE ARE SAYING
"Some places are the natural home of folklore, the lands where trees talk and straw spins to gold. The Blue Ridge Mountains are that kind of place, and Becky Mushko deftly translates the Grimm Brothers' Rumpelstiltskin into an Appalachian fellow, witty and magical, and cleverly at home among the whispering sassafrass and paw-paw."
Amanda Cockrell, Director
Hollins University Graduate Program in Children's Literature
"Ferradiddledumday is a heart-warming story about a young woman who works hard and leads a charmed life. With plants and animals from the Blue Ridge Mountains woven poetically through Gillie's encounters with a mysterious little man, the rhythms of the seasons flow through the story as naturally as the magic of the old fairy tale."
Tina L. Hanlon, Ferrum College
Director of the AppLit Web site
"Ferradiddledumday is pure magic and the wild beauty of the Blue Ridge Mountains is a perfect setting for the retelling of "Rumpelstiltskin." Comfortable dialogue and unaffected characters expose our rich Appalachian heritage. The story moves at a leisurely pace, leaving the reader with a sense of having visited somewhere very special. It's a story that I will read again...and again."
Joyce Tukloff, Children's Librarian
Franklin County Library, Rocky Mount, VA
Illustrations from Ferradiddledumday by Bruce Rae
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