Day 3 BEA

Networking in Real Life

In 1986, I saw an article in the paper that Margaret Sutton would be visiting Coudersport, PA and speak.  I managed to get more information and went to Coudersport to see her.  Judy Bolton books have always been a favorite series of mine.  Most of my books were back in Philadelphia but, I had the last book of the series sent to me.  I did manage to get it autographed.  I also met wonderful people.  Many of them, I still call friends and get to see each year in Coudersport.  The fans I learned are called Phantom Friends.  I am proud to be one of them.

I also belong to JudyBoltonFans and NancyDrewSleuths at groups.yahoo.com.  I am more active on the Judy group than the Nancy one.  The Nancy group sponsers a chat group on messenger.  Through this group, I chatted with Maria, Bill, Todd, JK, or Kevin.   I had met Bill as he is also a Phantom Friend but had not met any of the others until 2007 when I went to a Nancy Drew Convention and met Todd.  The chats with Maria eventually turned into phone calls.  I finally met her in 2008 before she and Felipe married in a church as a way of celebrating their 10th anniversary.  It was not until later that we became Bubba and Zada to her boys who I call our grandboys.

Some of the Phantom Friends are authors and I have been introduced to their works through the yahoo group.  There is a small book store called From My Shelf Books located in Wellsboro.  I am proud to say I am a member there.  The owners have authors come and sign books sometimes.  I order new books through them and sometimes older books.  Since, I started doing reading challenges, I have introduced some titles and authors to them and they have introduced some books to me.