Behind Our Eyes Book Launch Presents Author Cheryl McNeil Fisher Interviewed by Marlene Mesot September 15, 2022 Transcript Readers Note: If you have found this transcript to be helpful, please take a moment to let us know by sending a brief message to Marlene Mesot at: Marl.Mesot@gmail.com You may also contact someone you know in our writers’ group. Thank you very much. Ann Chiappetta: Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the September 15, 2022 Behind Our Eyes Book Launch program and author Cheryl McNeil Fisher. Marlene Mesot: Welcome everyone to this Behind Our Eyes Book launch presentation, featuring multi-talented children's author, Cheryl McNeil Fisher, Welcome, Cheryl. Cheryl: Hi, everybody! I'm so glad to be here. Thanks, Marlene, hi. Marlene: Let's start with a little bit about you, and how you got interested in writing. Cheryl: I've been writing ever since I could use a crayon. I've always loved to write. I was always one of those people when I had vision. I had a huge box of cards. I love stationery, put me in a stationery card. I love embossed stationery, pens, and so I've always liked to write. I was encouraged to write a book, my first book, by Marian Levy. She was one of our donors at Guiding Eyes for the Bind. I wrote to her every day when I was working with a new guide dog, and she encouraged me to write a book. Cheryl: It took me a couple of years putting the book together, getting any illustrator and sending it out to many publishing companies. Although it was not for them, I did get six handwritten notes on those form letters saying this isn't what we want right now but this is what maybe you can do to publish your book, how you can do it, and I even had someone recommend some of the edits. Cheryl: Eight years ago, self-publishing, it was still breaking ground. By listening also to The Writer magazine, I have looked and looked for years, but I canot find the issue of The Writer magazine where they talked about Bowker, and starting my own publishing company and that's what I did. I'm the first author in New York State to get a grant through the Commission for the Blind. Thank you, thank you, God for that. That helped me to be, put me in the black, and published several books. And now, what it does for me, I have so much fun. Cheryl: This is one of my favorite books. It’s been sitting around for a while and I'm finally getting it done. The goal was to have a big book launch in Philadelphia in costume, you know. And then, Covid happened. Things happen. So here I am with all of you, and this is pretty amazing. So I am just thrilled to be with all of you, and laugh. This is one of my favorite Cindy and Sammy books, and I hope that all of you will enjoy it too. Thanks. Marlene: Before we get into your Sammy book could we hear a little bit about some of your, briefly about some of your other talents besides your writing? Cheryl: I laugh really well. I can tell a good story. I don't want to talk about all that stuff. Marlene: Okay, alright. Then let’s move on. Ha, ha. But you do have some features of your website that might be interesting to young people. Can you tell us about that? Cheryl: Yeah. So, I have free coloring pages for each one of my books. I love working with kids. I have a book that I wrote with a seventh grader who helped illustrate the book. She came up to me, said she wanted to be an illustrator and write a book, and I said, well, contact me. We were at Stewart Airport, at a Career Day, and I gave her my card, and she followed up. And I thought, “Wow, this young girl is following up, and I, no matter what, I'm gonna do something. with her.” And that's where Surprise Sammy It's Your Birthday was born, so that's part of that. I love being able to do workshops and teach kids about writing books. Cheryl: I have some blank books that help explain how to do that and work with them, and my books are in audio. My books are in now, all of my books are in large print, on Amazon, and through Draft 2 Digital, which has Overdrive, and Barnes and Noble, Apple, etc. As far as print though, it would be through Barnes and Noble and Amazon, and I have my books on Audible, some of them. Cheryl: So, my goal has been, when I first started I, eight years ago, when I first started doing this, I was struggling to figure out; How can I make my books available to children in braille because my books range from first grade right on up. This is a higher grade, this book, in particular. I know even the lending libraries are lending out the braille displays, so that has taken a burden off of me, and I have also given my permissions to Perkins School. There's a school over in England that has permissions to braille my books out for students. Marlene: That is wonderful! So, let's get into your series, and then head toward Philadelphia for your History Mystery. Cheryl: Okay. It started with Cindy Lou and Sammy Too Go to the Mall, The Adventure of a Guide Dog Team, because I was told you need to have something kind of rhymey and whatever. And my golden retriever was the inspiration for well, actually, the inspiration for this book was a book, dog that I had only for two months who didn't make it, he had quite some antics. So, then Sammy came from my, my illustrator. Her dog's name was Sammy, and my sister's name is Cindy. So now I've updated the book and it's Cindy and Sammy Training at the Mall, The Adventures of a Guide Dog Team. Cheryl: The second book, also from my trip to Philadelphia, from the Philadelphia Zoo. The first one was Cindy Lou and Sammy, too, Meet New Friends at the Zoo, The Adventures of a Guide Dog Team. And now it is Cindy and Sammy Meet New Friends at the Zoo, The Adventures of a Guide Dog Team. Different illustrator. Now all of my books have been illustrated by the same illustrator who lives in Spain and the Surprise Sammy It's Your Birthday, I did was my third that I did with Angel, the seventh grader, and then I have also had Anastasia in Spain illustrate that, illustrate that book. Cheryl: And then I'll just touch on my Sister Shenanigans series, which is based on stories by my sister, that my sister and I did different things when growing up. So, they're little antics that I elaborate on. Cheryl: Bolter and Lightning in Nabbed is about an old golden retriever dog and an old horse, and they become superheroes, and save Lily the Pekinese. Cheryl: And then I wrote a memoir for someone that was really, really special, and I'm very proud of that also. I just done some re-edits, put it in large print, and I had a lot of help from the historical societies, and different, whether it's in the local towns in Westchester County, New York. It takes place in Westchester County, and in Orange County, New York, and New York City, so that's from nineteen, well, we start with ancestors, eighteen hundred coming over from Germany, and then go through when she was born, nineteen twenties. But World War, One, World War, Two, ah, and that was an honor too, and it really helped my writing but so many of us struggle about writing a memoir. How do I write about myself? Write about somebody else and you learn so much from doing. I did, anyway. Marlene: That's very interesting, because a lot of our writers in our writers’ group are memoir writers. Would you be willing to perhaps share a little bit of History Mystery with us? Cheryl: You know what's so great about this? I pick dialogue everyone, because if any of you saw my posting on Facebook today, I said, well, I'm gonna pick some dialogue because I can mess up and you won't know, and the great thing is, is when you read the book you'll be so into the book, you're gonna forget if I said everything the way it says in the book. So, I'm going to give you a little bit of background. Cindy, Sammy, their friend Kelly, are with Mulligan, the carriage driver, and his horse, is Brodin. Brodin, at one point, doesn't obey his carriage driver, because the street is too narrow. There's a car in the way, and that's how I bring it together with Sammy doing intelligent disobedience. Cheryl: And so now, Benjamin Franklin has joined them. He went to Sammy the night before, and said, I need you to help me find a document of national importance, and so now we're on to chapters 6, which is the Liberty Bell, and when they drive up to the Liberty Bell in the carriage, the Liberty Bell has windows, floor to ceiling, windows, and when they drive up they see this ghostly figure flying around, and he's writing on everything, writing on the Liberty Bell and writing on the walls, and Benjamin Franklin says, and they're all gasping like; Oh, my gosh! what are they doing? That is John Hancock and Kelly says, “Hurry, We need to get in there and stop him from and preserve our national symbol.” Cheryl: And so they got out. They stop at the curb, and unfortunately they have to wait in line just like everybody else. When they finally get through the line, they’re walking to the thing that displays the Liberty Bell, and they hear Mr. Franklin say, “John, what are you doing?” Cheryl: “Hey, Benny isn't it, great! I'm practicing my signature. I love writing my name. Doesn't it look handsome?” Cheryl: And then Cindy and Kelly come in and say, “No you can't do that you're ruining something that's so important to the...” Cheryl: Then Mr. Hancock says, “No, no, no. You know what I'm doing, Benny. You invented it. It's invisible ink. Look! As they watched and looked around the walls and the Liberty Bell, they started to see it fade and disappear and then he says, “Besides, anyway, even the people they couldn't see, only you could see it because I'm actually writing with ghostly ink.” And he goes, “ha, ha, ha!” and he does a big roar. So, he says, “But watch, watch what I can do.” And he goes over next to a man, and he starts writing on the man's arm, and the man swats at his arm and says, “What is that? Something's crawling on me.” Cheryl: And he's laughing and roaring, and Cindy and Kelly are gazing and have their mouths wide open, and he floats over next to a boy, and he starts to write his name on the boy's forehead, and the boy says, “What are you doing? Why are you writing on my forehead?” Cheryl: “Oh, you can see me?” Cheryl: “Of course, I can see you. Why did you do that?” Cheryl: “Oh, my apologies, lad”, and he bows to him and says, “I didn't know that you could see me.” Cheryl: And he says, “Well, it's not very nice that you're doing this whether I can see you or not. If I wrote on the walls, or I wrote on anything at home, I would get in trouble.” Cheryl: So Mr. Hancock bows to him and says, “My apologies, lad, thank you for bringing this to my attention, because I will put my pen away, for now.” Cheryl: So then he looks at Mr. Franklin, turns his head and says, “Hey, aren't you Mr. Aren't you Benjamin Franklin?” Cheryl: Benjamin Franklin turns and smiles, “At your service, lad.” and bows to him. Cheryl: He says, “What are all of you guys doing here together? He looked at Cindy. Cindy tells them that we are looking for Thomas Jefferson's writing desk. Cheryl: Cameron looks and scratches his head. “A desk isn't that kind of heavy for one person to be carrying?” Cheryl: And they explain. “No. it's the Thomas Jefferson created a special desk when he was writing the Declaration of Independence and it's called the portable writing desk”, and we may know it as a lap desk today.” Cheryl: John Hancock looks over. “You looking for Thomas? I saw him a little while ago. He was over by Carpenters Hall. He's going over to have tea with Betsy. Clarified that he was going over to Betsy Ross's house. That's okay, I can stop right there, that's enough. Marlene: That is going to be such an intriguing book to read, there's going to be so much information in there, and the way you've made it so lively. It's just absolutely beautiful. Cheryl: Thank you. Marlene: Would you like to mention the Writing Works Wonders Podcast which you co-host? Cheryl; Oh, yes, absolutely. I'm so excited and really proud that we received the Vernan C. Henley Media Award this year from ACB publications committee. What an honor and we are so pleased and happy and a lot of it has to do with all of you on this call, and we always mentioned Behind Our Eyes, and we're so happy that we can all work together. and learn together. You know how it started, and for and hung in there with me. And then Kathy came along, and we paired off and we worked so well together that dynamic duo. and I am speechless. I'm grateful. What a gift! And our podcast and the authors we have on! And it's been an amazing…and it's just the beginning. We have written, and we've started our first book The Writing Works Wonders Creative Writing Journal. Our next one is Web Design for Authors. We are calling it the Visionary Series. We do it with our eyes closed. The majority of that is Kathy, and I went through and did edits and things. But you know, Kathy's our master of the universe, master of our website, and then we have the Round Robin will be our third one. And if you go on Google and you search round robin or writing round, or whatever, we come up on the first page. ACB Media does, too, because that's where our podcast is on ACB Media as well. So that's pretty neat. Marlene: That's wonderful. I have one more question. But before I get to it, I'm gonna ask Kathy King, would you like to say something? Kathy: We’re all really proud. Everybody here is really proud of the work Cheryl's done with the podcast, but especially with her books. The podcast has grown out of her experience as an author, and also mine and other people on this call, give generously of their experience to others through it and it's because of our workers, authors, we're able to do that. I think part of the reason I love working with Cheryl is because she has a very giving heart, and the focus of what she does is about helping to uplift other people. And I think you can hear that in her books and in her approach and working with people. So. Congratulations, Cheryl. This is a big day. Marlene: Okay, Cheryl. Here it comes now. Where do your ideas come from? Cheryl; My head? No, I'll tell you. You know I really get it. I get it. When people say the characters take on a life of their own. It's so amazing when you're reading this book, it's amazing to hear what the characters say. Then I told you about the first book. The second book, the Philadelphia Zoo and what was so great was in September so there wasn't a crowd, and so my dog Louis was able to engage. The security just said, if any of the animals have a reaction, would you, you know, please just walk away, or call us, if we have any challenges or difficulty. But we didn't. In that book you'll even hear about…Sanka jumped right up on the fence, two front paws on the fence, looked over, and that's not something, my, you know, our guide dogs aren't supposed to do that. But he just like, “Woa, look at that monkey down there!” And it just gave me such creativity, the way that all of them interacted together. So, I love talking through animals. Cheryl: Nabbed. Bolter, Lightning and Nabbed that's their hero voices, and the cover will show a little Pekinese cowing on the bottom because she gets kidnapped, and the horse becomes a Pegasus, a white flying horse, and the golden retriever is sitting, standing on his back with a blue cape with a lightning bolt and that's because a friend of mine came over, my friend Maureen with her grandchildren, and I was watching a Pekinese at the time for a friend who worked in Canada four days a week. So, Lilly, the Pekinese, stayed with me. Maureen and the kids went outside. Said, “Can we take Lilly?” Cheryl: “Sure.” Not thinking. Lilly was gonna scurry those little feet right underneath the fence, ‘cause it was high enough for her to scoot right under, and you know, the kids went and got her and stuff. But boom. A story was born, and she was getting dognapped, and was going to be rescued by the other animals. Cheryl: And then my sister books, Apple Batter Up is based on a story about my sister and I. It was a, you know, one of those things that everybody laughs at, at the holidays, and my sister and I say, “What were we thinking?” We would have killed our kids if we came home to that. We took a bushel of apples, my twirling baton, and we played whack the apple in the house with a bushel of apples, and they were all over. In the book, it's done in the kitchen. We did it in our living room. So, I'm allowed to tell you about it and that's all I'll say about that. I do have a disclaimer telling kids do not do this in your house. Cheryl: And then the second one is Hootin’ Holiday. That'll be coming out, and that's based on the time Cindy and I got new skis for Christmas and we were just I think I figured eight and six, or something like that, and we were on our way up the hill, and I saw a little mouse. That ended our ski trip for the day. We went running down, but through all that, I took a lot of our holiday different experiences and put them in a book. And my sister gave me some other ideas for some new ones, too, so. Cheryl: In the History Mystery, I really look forward to doing something more. My next book hopefully, will be along the Hudson River here in New York. Marlene: That sounds wonderful. Can you tell us what your website is and your Writing Works Wonders website? Cheryl: You can reach me through Writing Works Wonders dot com. My wonderful co-host, Kathy, she is the master of the website, has created a page that has wonderful information there, and Cheryl McNeil Fisher dot com. Marlene: That is wonderful, and we are at the halfway point, so I'm gonna turn it back to Annie for the Q. and A. Ann: Alright, this is Annie. Carol Mackie, you are first. Cheryl: I knew it! Carol Mackey: You knew I’d jump right in. right? This is so exciting, and I honestly can't wait to read your books, but I have two questions as always. Are they available in audio as yet and when do you hopefully have that happening? If it hasn't, that's my first question. Cheryl: The answer is the Mall, the Zoo, Nabbed and the Birthday Book is not up yet, but I will be putting that up. They've all been done in audio the History Mystery will take a while to get that done, and my sister books. Carol: I look forward to it. My other question also, I do have grandchildren. What is the age range for readers of your books? And how did you come to that, or did it just happen? And this happen to be the age range, or were you kind of thinking about that at all during your writing? Cheryl: It depends on the comprehension, and how well the child reads because Lisa G's grandson whipped through these books in a matter of just a couple days the books that he had. I think I gave him five. And so, it can go from six, seven, right on up. And History Mystery is a great time for fourth and fifth graders when they're learning. But you know, at any age, because, as my wonderful reviewer, Marlene said, adults are going to enjoy these too. And I hope you will. Carol: I will. Well, I'm looking forward to it. So, thank you. and this has been delightful. Thanks so much, Cheryl, for showing up and doing this. Cheryl: Thank you. Annie: All right. We have Lisa G. and then Deborah. Lisa Gilmartin: Hi, congratulations! My grandson is seven and a half and I couldn't believe how well he reads. It’s amazing, his inflection. I was like, “Wow! Did Cheryl coach you on this?” I was so interested in the stories myself, and Sy Young’s fall and his team, and he's been with me and my guide dog to see us, and it's just so wonderful that, you know, he got to learn more and more detail, and it was just wonderful. I enjoy the books as much as he enjoyed the books. And thank you so much. It's just so wonderful. I would like to know, with History Mystery in Philadelphia, what made you choose the characters that you chose, like, Betsy Ross, Ben Franklin, John Hancock? How did you come up with those? Cheryl: Well, we took a carriage ride through Philadelphia. My route goes according to the, a walking route. They have either their guided tours or you can do a self-guided tour. It's a walking route that'll take you through these different historical sites, and so that's how I went from house, to house, to house, or site, and coming around even Alfred’s Alley, I didn't know about that still populated residential street in America. It's very narrow, and then Christ Church going through there where Benjamin Franklin is buried. We went around the corner, and then his daughter and his grandson are buried there, and they jump out and say hello! And I chose Benjamin Franklin because I found out about the writing desk. It just all came into play, because, especially as up with the carriage going through the scene. Hearing all the things that Benjamin Franklin started or invented, and the fire brigade the fire insurance, and we even have a fire brigade that goes right through the carriage as they're going down the street. That's where my first character came from. And God put it in my head, really. Ha. And I wanna say there's an image in the book of young John Quincy that the Madison Museum, which is not in Philadelphia, gave that to me and permission to print it. A lot of the historical sites have given me permissions to either copy their imagery, or I have had illustrations based on those images. And when they go to the old tavern, they meet up with George Washington and his wife Martha, and Dolly and James Madison, and John Adams, and John Quincy. It just evolved. Ann: Great. Next we have Deborah, and then after that is Abbie. Deborah Kendrick: Oh, yea, hi! Cheryl: Thanks. Deborah: So first of all, my first question is very boring and pragmatic, and that is, have you looked into having these books produced in print, b raille formats, like the books that National Braille Press does now, but others did before them, where real pages are inserted into the print copy, so that blind parents and grandparents can read them to their children and grandchildren, and blind children and sighted children, can read them together? Cheryl: I had. If someone has ideas let me know. But because I couldn't afford to print that many books, and so I gave permissions to the schools to print them. And then there's a young girl who has actually pretended to read my books pictures of it. I asked if we could get a book to her in particular. But I've given permissions free for them to print them who, whatever agency. If you have someone in mind, please let me know, because I'm not looking to make anything from…anyone who can do something with braille, is great. Deborah: Well, but you could. I'm at a slight disadvantage, because I haven't read them yet, so maybe they're too high a level. But what national Braille Press does, it would be a sponsorship issue. Deborah: National Braille Press finds the people to sponsor books, and then they take a thousand copies, I'm making those numbers up. It's probably not that many, but a thousand copies of, you know, Dr. Seuss's ABCs, supplied by Random House. Well, somebody else pays for those books, and then they do the brailing and the rebinding so that the book looks, so that the child who gets that book, it looks, you know. It used to be so thrilling for me to go into schools and read stories to children and have children see my book, and say, “I've got that book!”, because it looks the same, and that's the problem with giving permissions is then they're just spinning off hard copy braille, which looks like nothing. It's not as pretty for the blind kids to have. We could get in touch later, and I can maybe help you navigate National Braille Press, because I will. Cheryl: Thank you, I will. And I have people that will sponsor. I know there's people that will do that. Deborah: So yeah, because I think that’s very cool. Cheryl: Yeah, okay, umhm. Deborah: There are so few books that talk about blindness, talk about guidedogs. They did a book, I think it's called Six Dots, which is a lovely, lovely, lovely children's book about Louis Braille. There's other books about Louis Braille, but this one's actually good. But there just aren't many choices so anyway. Cheryl: Yeah, Deborah: I would be happy to do that. Cheryl: Yeah. Good, thank you. Deborah: In the beginning you mentioned writing a memoir and I didn't follow that. Who is that book about? Cheryl: It's about a lady I met in a nursing home. We started talking because her husband had been involved with the first electric, the automated bowling pin setter and we got talking about her history and different things. And that's how that came about. Somebody had written one page for her at the nursing home, and so I looked at that and I said, “Well, would you like me to help you with some of that?”, and before you knew, we were doing an entire book, looking up ancestry and it was just, ah, very interesting learning about, you know, Macy's Day Parade and how she was at the first Macy’s Day Parade, and just a little girl, and you know those kinds, of historical things that were interesting for me, too. Deborah: Yah. Cheryl: It's up on Amazon right now. And it's also in Draft 2 Digital which is also in Barnes and Noble and Apple, etc. I did just put them up on digital and large print. Deborah: So tell us the title, so we can go look for it. Cheryl: Oh, I'm sorry, Time Capsule. And what I did was every chapter is a time capsule. Deborah: Thank you. Time Capsule. Cheryl: I have a picture of the Grand Central Clock on the front. This is just the tiffany, the head of the top of the clock, because she and her husband met and said goodbye underneath the Grand Central Clock just before he was shipped out to the South Pacific during World War Two. Deborah: Very nice, wonderful. Thank you. Cheryl: Thank you. Deborah. Ann: Okay. Abbie wanted to ask a question. Abbie: Well, actually, you just answered it, Deborah. You and I, great minds think alike. I was wondering about that memoir and so I'll definitely go look for that. Cheryl: Umhm! Thank you. Abbie: Oh, you're so welcome, thank you. I'm gonna go find that memoir. Ann: Alice had her hand raised. Alice Massa: And I do have a question. Ann: Okay. Alice: I was wondering, since you mentioned the museums and working with some museums to secure some permission for photos and drawings and such. Have you also talked with those museums about selling your book? And I love to go to museum gift shops and History Mystery in Philadelphia would just be delightful purchase in a gift shop for children. Cheryl: Well, I'm hoping that's going to be part of it, because they all requested copies of the book. Alice: Wonderful. Cheryl: Yeah, And then once they read them, I'm hoping we can work on a contract where each area has a gift shop. So it'd be fun to have one in each place. So thank you. Ann: We have one more hand raised. Peter, and I think that will be the last question before we go to closing out. Peter Altschul: Thank you, Cheryl, and thank you for all the work you do at Writing Works Wonders, and I'm really curious to know about your thoughts about children and literacy. So the stereotypical view of kids is that they don't read any more, and they don't write any more. I'm sure you've heard this all. Do you have any thoughts just how kids’ pattern or tastes, or the way they read, changed over the past, say 30 or 40 or 25 years? How’s that influenced the way you write? Cheryl: First, the History Mystery, when I was writing this, I was thinking of myself as a child. I struggled with history and I wanted it to be entertaining, so that children who read this book are going to remember. Having word association with some of those items maybe there's a conversation that’ll strike. How are they gonna remember the Liberty Bell? I put in there what the Liberty Bell says. Maybe they'll remember Cindy touching it, and feeling it, and then it being read aloud to her. Some of the kids are reading ebooks. But a lot are still reading the actual books. The children that I meet when I'm at schools, that's how I focused before the pandemic, getting out and we're doing presentations and talking about my books. I still am selling. That's a good thing about these books, Books don't go out of style like a lot of things. I don't know if that answers your question. But I think books will be around for a while, I hope. Peter: I think you’ve done a good job with that. Thank you very much. Cheryl: Thank you. Ann: Alright. I'm going to hand it over to Alice, and then Marlene will give us the final word. Alice: Alright, thank you, Annie. and this is Alice Massa, President of Behind Our Eyes. And good evening to all of you, and thank you all so much for joining us for this eighth BOE Book Launch of Behind Our Eyes on behalf of our 107 members of Behind Our Eyes writers group. Certainly, thank you all, Thanks to our spotlighted author, Cheryl McNeil Fisher, and also to her BBL coach and interviewer, Marlene Mesot. I also want to thank Annie, the chair of our book launch committee, our Zoom host, for this evening, great assistance this evening from Abbie Johnson Taylor, for the first time as a zoom host for us. So, thanks to bringing these special book launches to Behind Our Eyes, and we are currently scheduled through January of 2023. We are delighted about the success of this endeavor and before I go on to tell you just a little bit about membership in Behind Our Eyes, I do want to congratulate Cheryl and Kathy King for the Vernon Henley Media Award. Such a wonderful accomplishment for both of you. Congratulations. Certainly, Cheryl. congratulations on all those wonderful books that you shared with us this evening. If any of you joining us this evening are interested in Behind Our Eyes. And if you are a person with a verifiable disability, and you have a keen interest in writing, you need not be a published author. You can join Behind Our Eyes, and you can simply go to our website and read much more about our writers’ organization. Our website is simply behind our eyes dot org. At that website you can also go to our biannual online literary publication Magnets and Ladders, and you can read about our anthologies that have been a part of our group as well, So, lots there for you to explore, including a link that says, Join Us. If you click on that link, you will go to a brief application form to fill out, and will soon be contacted by Marlene Mesot, who is our secretary, and you can quickly and easily become a member writer of Behind Our Eyes. Now, if you have any difficulty with that form, just send an email to membership at behind our eyes dot o r g. Now, finally, I want to ask you all to join us again for our October BOE Book Launch, and on October the sixth, which is a Thursday, at eight o'clock Eastern time, our spotlighted author will be Peter Altschul, who you heard from just a few minutes ago, and he will be sharing his third book with us, Riding Elephants, and so I hope that join us on October sixth. Why don't you bring a friend or a family member with you also? We’re delighted to share our books with you through the BOE Book Launch each month. Now, with all of that being said, I just want to thank all of you very much again for being with us this evening, and I'm happy to turn the microphone back now to Marlene. Marlene: Thank you, Alice. And before we ask Cheryl for some final comments, does anyone have a question that they did not get to ask? Okay, no questions I guess. Okay, Cheryl? Cheryl: I wanna say thanks. Thank you to everyone that showed up, and thought, and came. And I know there'll be plenty of people who will listen to the recording as well. I'm just so excited and honored to be doing this. This is my first time doing something like this virtually, and it's been exciting. and to be continued right? And I think for anyone else who's planning a book launch to remember it's not about numbers, it's about who is here, and we do the best we can, no matter what and I am grateful to even have that opportunity to read aloud, which is always nerve racking. I'm one of the in-betweeners where I don’t have a hard time seeing print, and I don't know braille proficiently, so I'm just…thank you, and I feel in a safe environment to do that. And all of you are just, I don't have the words for it. Just thank you so much. Thanks. Alice: Thanks. Quickly, I forgot to mention that since our previous book launch in August, we now have all of our book launches, from January through August, on our website as well. So if any book launch that you missed you would like to listen to, they’re easily accessed from our website, as well. That's something new. Thank you again. Marlene: And the book launch mentions the author as well as the book that was featured on the Book Launch. So if you've missed the title, you can get it from our website as well. And I just like to say thank you everyone for joining us tonight. I think we had an amazing Book Launch and Cheryl's books are as dynamic as she is, so I'm sure you'll all be looking forward to getting them and being inspired by a wonderful, amazing author. Annie. Ann: Good night, everybody. Readers Note: If you have found this transcript to be helpful, please take a moment to let us know by sending a brief message to Marlene Mesot at: Marl.Mesot@gmail.com You may also contact someone you know in our writers’ group. Thank you very much.