Revised Website

WWW.BONNIESTANARD.COM

I’m pretty proud of myself! Even if I can’t understand an idiot’s guide to web design, I revised my webpage myself—well, myself and godaddy. Only occasionally did godaddy freeze up on me, an accomplishment for a person who’s taken a while to learn how to forward and reply. That’s not to say my husband hasn’t had to put up with a few screams of “I can’t get this to work!” 

There are web design programs other than godaddy that amateurs such as myself can learn to use. What appears as one of the most common (perhaps because the company's name appears in the domain name) is WordPress, which will also handle registering your domain name. Another user-friendly web design tool that does the same is Posterous. See a link to a WordPress review below.* 

NEW PAGES

I’ve given each of my novels a page with an introduction since they are such close kin some people might confuse them. KEDZIE, Saint Helena Island Slave is the first one I wrote, but it shares a bed with SONNY, Cold Slave Cradle. And if they’re bedfellows, you might say MASTER of Westfall Plantation is a close but aloof sibling. Those three books segue into WESTFALL, Slave to King Cotton, which can be thought of as a family reunion. 

ANTEBELLUM

During the years 1857 through 1861 on a barrier island off the coast of South Carolina, no schooners dropped anchor. The stagecoach line ended twenty-five miles away. The ferryboat went to the mainland on high tide and returned on low tide. A packet-boat arrived ever so often with the mail, all of which was delivered to the general store. Everybody’s lineage was known and honored or dishonored, as the case might be. Nobody went unrecognized. Here was where mosquitoes bit and fevers raged. This setting was fertile ground for plots to take root. I’ve added a page to set the antebellum scene.

STUFF 

Also new to bonniestanard.com is a page titled “Stuff” where you’ll get a chance to win a copy of KEDZIE if you can figure out the name of a prominent 19th Century SC senator and proponent of slavery. (He was also US vice president under John Qunicy Adams and Andrew Jackson.) On the same page is a photo of a tree that’s located near Lyndon Johnson’s gravesite. I took it several years ago while in Texas. 

REVISIONS 

With all the changes I made, this photo, one of my favorites, didn't find a place. 

NEW INFO, NOT NEW PAGES

It is well past time that I put something besides a photo on the “Poetry” page. The new photo is of the beach, which introduces my poem “On the Ocean’s Edge.” The other poem is about my childhood. Both “Author” and “Other Work” pages remain with updated text and several new photos.

I hope you’ll take a look at the changes: bonniestanard.com. 

WordPress review at 
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2089365,00.asp