Pre-order a signed and personalized copy today!
Are you interested in getting a copy of The Eighty Dollar Champion signed by the author and by Harry de Leyer himself?
Harry and I will be appearing at the wonderful bookshop and gallery, Over the Moon Books in Crozet, Virginia on September 21st at 6 pm.
Can’t make it? Don’t worry. Just order online or call the store prior to the event to reserve your copy (and request personalization)
Over the Moon Bookstore & Artisan Gallery Store Hours and Contact Information
Quantities are strictly limited and available on a first come-first served basis.
Pre-Order Today and Win a Bookplate Signed by Harry de Leyer!
Enter today to win one of five beautiful custom designed bookplates signed by Harry de Leyer! Don’t wait. This is a REAL collector’s item.
It’s as easy as 1-2-3
1. Pre-order the Book.
2. Send an email confirmation no later than midnight on 8/23/11.(please do not send the actual receipt. Just send an email saying that you pre-ordered.)
3. I will choose the winner at random. Due to logistical constraints, this contest is limited to entries from the United States.
See below for full contest rules.
Beautiful Custom Bookplate Signed by Harry de Leyer
Contest Rules: No purchase is necessary. This contest is limited to people who live in the USA.
The book is in my hands…
Finally, after three long years of work, the book is finally coming out on Tuesday, August 23rd. And a couple of days ago, a box from Random House arrived in the mail. There really is no other moment like the moment that you first hold a new book in your hands.
So, what’s the horsey author to do? Take it down to the barn, of course!
How Far Would You Go to Help a Cat in Need?
Would you get up at three o’clock in the morning, night after night, year after year to help feral cats? Would you type your fingers to the bone, answering up to 20,000 emails a year?
If your name is Lisa Pierson DVM, the answer would be yes and yes.
Meet Lisa. Talented jumper rider, dedicated cat advocate, and a person whose passion for animals burns with a fierceness that is downright humbling.
Lisa and I met years ago in Pony Club. A brilliant redhead, she stood out even then. Her fearlessness led her to excel at jumpers, her finesse took her to the AHSA Medal Finals. But when you ask her to relate a favorite riding memory, she talks not of her myriad trophies won, but of her idyllic childhood when she could throw a bareback pad on her horse and ride to the store to buy a carton of milk for her mother.
From childhood, Lisa wanted to be a veterinarian. She started as an equine vet, but over time, turned her attention to felines in need.
In the beautiful California community where she lived, unspayed outdoor cats and barn cats had gone feral—living difficult lives without enough food, prey to larger animals and disease, and decimating the local songbird population.
It was then that Lisa embarked on a fifteen year campaign to try to help cats. At three o’clock in the morning, Lisa prowled the canyons in the dark and silence, setting humane traps for the feral cats, in her quest to spay or neuter and then release and return.
Ask Lisa if she is proud of herself, or if she finds rescue work rewarding, and she’ll tell you the truth: it’s heartbreaking work. It’s like trying to stop a tsunami with a wall made out of children’s blocks. Lisa is plagued by the feeling that whatever she does—no matter how hard she works, or how much money she donates to cat rescue, it will never be enough.
But that doesn’t stop her from trying.
Lisa’s blog, Catinfo.org is one of the leading sites in the world for information about how to feed cats to decrease the incidence of health problems related to poor diet.
Lisa’s advice helped to ease the final days of our family cat, Charlotte, before she passed away. Her emergency phone consultation helped save the life of a diabetic cat stranded during Hurricane Katrina. Her website gets hits from all over the world.
Lisa Pierson’s Pearls:
Why she feels lucky: the magical childhood she spent riding horses.
What makes her sad: the plight of animals who are abused or neglected, a problem that has grown even more acute with the worsening economy.
What she believes: You are what you eat, and so are cats. Many common health problems in cats can be alleviated by feeding the proper diet.
How you can help: Lisa’s most important message: spay and neuter your cats.
Want to know more about Lisa? Visit her website: Catinfo.org
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Cheryl and Fiyero
Make a wish. Make it come true. You might say that is Cheryl Kelly’s motto. She grew up riding horses and working around a stable near her home in suburban Maryland.
From then on, Cheryl had a dream. She wanted to have horses, and she wanted to be able to keep them at home.
But life has a way of intervening in the best-laid plans. Like most of us, Cheryl has a full-time job, and she’s a mom, and like most of us, she juggles work, carpools, cooking meals, and a list of family responsibilities too long to count.
Living in the country, keeping horses at home—those are dreams for millionaires, right? But not so fast. Cheryl told me that the best way to achieve a dream is to hold on to it through thick and thin. To keep believing it’s possible.
Why is it that dreamers are so often the people who open their hearts to animals in need? Cheryl’s horse, Fiyero, is an off-the-track thoroughbred.
If an ex-racehorse could tell us his dreams, it might involve a peaceful pasture in rural Maryland, and that is just where he lives now.
Cheryl says, “keeping my horses at home has not made me a better rider, but it has made me a better horsewoman. Caring for them all the time helps me to understand them.” It’s not as easy life she has chosen. At the end of a full work day, if the pasture needs mowing, Cheryl can be found on a tractor as the sun is setting on her seven acre farm.
This is what I have learned from Cheryl. Hold on to your dreams, and the good you bring into your own life will quickly spread to others.
If he could talk, Fiyero would be the first one to tell you that.
Share TweetShar and Romo
Sometimes you meet a person who has more than the average spark of life. That’s how I feel about Shar. For years, I’ve belonged to an awesome community of writers called Backspace. Backspace came about when a couple of generous writers realized that authors, who mostly work alone, had a hunger to interact with each other on the web and they spent their own time, treasure, and talent to make an online community for writers. The motto of Backspace is writers helping writers.
Sharlotte Giberson-Graham is married to Chris Graham, one of the founders of Backspace, and I met her recently at the Backspace Writer’s Conference in New York. Shar and I got talking and told me about her work: she teaches computer skills in a retirement community, and her eyes lit up as she explained to me how introducing eighty-year-olds to Facebook and Ebay, and Google broadened their horizons and opened up their worlds.
Shar finds working with older people fascinating. “You just have to take the time to listen. The people I’ve worked with have led fascinating lives and have so much to teach us…. I learn as much from them as they learn from me.” I have to agree with her. Writing a book about an immigrant who lived through Nazi occupation and came to the United States with few possessions, has taught me how much previous generations have to teach us about living through tough times.
Turns out Shar and I share another bond. We both have a passion for animals—especially those in need of help or adoption. Our conversation soon turned to her beautiful dog Romo: half Aussie half Golden, and 100% charm. He always sleeps with his head on a pillow and has a bit of a herding tendency, which isn’t a problem out in the country where they live. Shar adopted him from a shelter, along with another dog and a cat, and she feels passionately that others should do the same.
I never cease to be amazed at how ordinary people can do incredible things. Chris Graham and Shar Giberson looked at the Internet and had a vision of an interconnected world. A world where people can share their stories and feel a little less lonely.
And Romo? Well, he’s a lucky dog, and he hopes that if you are thinking about getting a dog, you will remember how many animals are in need of adoption.
Share TweetGinger and Ivan
My mother and father moved into their house in southern California in 1970. From the driveway, it looks like an average suburban ranch house, but just beyond the small square backyard, there was a steep drop-off and the second acre was covered over by a horse corral. In the mild sunny climate, horses can stay outside all year, there’s just a covered shed to get out of the hottest sun or pouring rain. For a while, we sometimes had three or four or six horses back there—when a horse was getting older and nobody wanted him, we used to open the gate and let him in. There was always room for one more.
So, it was a sad day when the last horse, Casey, the homebred foal of my childhood horse, finally died, after spending more than thirty happy years there. I had long since moved away, and grown up and moved on. But my mother, Ginger took care of Casey. When Casey died, the hillside corral stood empty for the first time in more than forty years.
My mothers’ friends consoled her. Each understood how hard it was to lose a horse who has been a loyal companion and an old friend.
One friend, JoeAnn Gordon, felt especially sorry. Her own beloved horses, Ivan and Waldo, were pastured in Northern California. Waldo was getting old, and JoeAnn was haunted by the idea that he would die far away from home, alone, with no one who cared about him nearby.
So JoeAnn and my mother came up with a plan. My mother missed having horses. Waldo and Ivan were going to come home and live out their days in my mother’s corral.
Waldo was a paint, and nobody was quite sure where he came from. JoeAnn thought he was the best horse she ever had. Maybe he knew, because after he got back, he didn’t live much longer, and JoeAnn was there for him when he died, standing right by his side.
Now Ivan and my mom keep each other company, and JoeAnn can stop by for a visit whenever she wants. Which makes me want to quote Robert Browning:
The hill-side ‘s dew-pearl’d;
The lark ‘s on the wing;
The snail ‘s on the thorn;
God ‘s in His heaven—
All ‘s right with the world!
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