Writers on the River, Thistle Farms, and my love for both ~ by Angie of TwinsieTalk Book Review

Hi Everyone!!! I am Angie from TwinsieTalk Book Reviews, Writers on the River Author Event Host, and Healing with Words NP Charity Co-owner.  Besides all those jobs I am also a full time Special Education Pre-K Teacher, mom, dog rescuer, and wife.  Life is so busy, and I can’t imagine it any other way.





I am blessed that Kristine has asked me to come and chat for a few minutes with her audience to talk about many different subjects. My love for blogging, promoting, and event planning are evident when I talk to anyone.

Lets jump in and talk about book signings…..more to the point…..My book signing called Writers on the River.  You can go to www.writersontheriver.com for more information.

I feel extremely lucky to have meet and friended Jillian Jacobs because without her none of this  post would be possible.  Jillian and I met at a book signing in Indiana in 2013.  She contacted me after to review for her and BOOM instant friendship.  One day I was scrolling through my Facebook feed when I saw her say “Hey I think I might plan an event in Peoria, anyone interested?”  I jumped and said I lived here with my TwinsieTalk Book Reviews blogging best friend Melinda Bones.  Next thing I knew, we had a meeting, and were signing contracts to form Writers in the River 2016.  Jillian grabbed her friend Anya Breton and TA-DA we became the solid team we are today.

This picture was taken the very first meeting of the four of us. 

Photo by Jillian Jacobs

 

We were all so nervous because would any author want to attend?  Could we even get readers in the door?  What happens if we fail?  ANXIETY CITY!!  Now when I look back at this picture Jillian took, I am overwhelmed with pride.  Pride at what we have accomplished and pride at how much money we have raised for our charities.  We are kicking off year 5 and have raised $24,000 in cash and $1,000 in supplies for our charities.  For a group of women who didn’t think anyone would want to come, I think that is a pretty amazing total!!

Photo by Eric McKinney

This picture was taken at the end of #WOTR19 with our friend Dorris.  She is a speaker we have come up from Thistle Farms to help spread the message of their charity.  We fully support 100% now as our only event charity.  We have been blessed they are super supportive of us and have been so wonderful with working with us to help them help their residents.  If you aren’t aware of Thistle Farms check them out here at: https://thistlefarms.org

If you have continued reading, I am hoping you are interested to learn about my event and NP Healing With Words.  Well friends, grab a drink and lets keep on chatting!!

Photo courtesy of Angie Johnson

After the success of Writers on the River 2016 the four of us decided we wanted to take this event more seriously.  We wanted to legitimize what we were doing. The four put our heads together and formed a 501 (c) 3 NP Charity called Healing with Words.  We played off Thistle Farms tagline of Love Heals.  We figured Healing with Words was due to the fact of authors and their love of writing words plus readers and their love of reading words would be a foundation of our charity.  We have been blessed by the support of around 20 authors who have stuck by our side since the very first year.  I am pretty sure that is an impossible task for events and yet we have the #WOTRFamily behind us.

Photo courtesy of Angie Johnson

The four of us love what we do.  A huge bucket list dream was for the four of us to go and take a tour of Thistle Farms in June 2019.  We loved getting a personalized tour and hearing all about good Thistle Farms does both in the USA and internationally now.  They are a social justice enterprise helping women overcome addiction, prostitution and trafficking. When we walked in, we felt like Rockstars because someone knew who we were in EVERY SINGLE DEPARTMENT!!  The hugs and tears flew like crazy but for the four of us, taking part in the daily meditation circle had the tears flowing freely.  I can’t stress enough what an amazing opportunity we had.  We suggest anyone who is in Nashville to go and check them out.  Hanging out for a couple hours in the shop buying so many items and then eating in their café, was the highlight of the day.
  

The following day would prove to be even better because we got to meet Becca Stevens the FOUNDER of Thistle Farms.

Photo courtesy of Angie Johnson

Meeting your idol……Words couldn’t be expressed when we introduced ourselves and SHE KNEW US.  We were sobbing listening to her message that day.  Powerful, Hopeful, Energized, and Meaningful are the words I can only use to describe how we felt leaving to go home.

As you can see by the post, if you have hung in this long, the four of us believe whole heartedly in what we are doing.  Each year we are humbled by the number of authors who want to attend our event because of word of mouth from their friends and our attending readers.  Authors tell us how amazing they have heard we are, how organized we are, how fair we are, how we treat everyone the same and equally, and how we CARE about each and every single author.

So now is when I am going to share my #WOTR20 event information for you.  We would be honored and overjoyed to see anyone attend.  Our tickets have just gone on sale and VIP/Early Access go quickly so if you are in the Peoria, IL area on July 18, 2020 then grab a couple tickets and see what we are all about.  You can grab tickets at our webpage listed above or come and join our reader group and see what we are all about and who we have attending this year.  Since this is our 5^th year we are expanding and growing to get even more authors in.  WE currently have 121 authors attending!!  YIKES and YIPPEE!!!

Ticket information:

VIP - $45  12pm - 1pm with a stuffed swag bag, 1pm - 5pm general signing, and after party access from 7:30pm -11:30pm.

Early Access - $25  12pm - 1pm with a stuffed swag bag, 1pm - 5pm general signing, but no after party ticket.

General Admission - $10  1pm - 5pm general signing.

After Party $35  – come and eat some yummy taco bar, mashed potato bar along with get a few silly pictures taken in the photo booth with you and your favorite authors.

Event Reader Group is https://www.facebook.com/groups/writersontheriver/
 

Thank you so much Kristine and I look forward to having you attending #WOTR20 in July.


Listen to TwinsieTalk Book Review's podcast episode here.