Nine years ago one of my girlfriends invited me to Southern Voices book festival. I thought rather priggishly that the last thing in world I wanted to do was go to a library in Hoover Alabama and listen to authors speak all day! Having attended the conference for the last nine years I can say that that my favorite weekend of the entire year. The conference is run so well and the authors are so warm and funny and smart. They don't just read from their books or read a speech they command the stage and connect. Last Friday we heard the poet Laurette of the United Stated Billy Collins speak. He has a dry urbane wit and we laughed for an hour as he read his poetry. Here is a link to the site. I believe you can download audio and video of the writers speaking. This year there were great Speakers with great body language. I actually had the delicious treat of speaking briefly to Billy Collins. I was introduced as just having done several interviews on Tiger Wood's body language and Billy gave his opinion. Check out my article in Bull Dog reporter for what he said. And google Patti Wood Tiger Wood's for my other comments.