For Release November 7, 2005

[okieinexile]

FOR RELEASE NOVEMBER 7, 2005

Local Writer Published in National Magazine


“There are some things you enjoy doing so much that you’d do them for nothing,” says Bobby Winters, columnist for the Pittsburg Morning Sun. “That’s the way writing is for me, but every now and then it is good to pass a milestone so that you know that your efforts are appreciated by others.”

Winters has recently passed such a milestone by having an article appear in the nationally distributed Plain Truth Magazine, a non-denominational Christian publication.

“I’d been writing religious essays for years,” remarks Winters. “Some of the first pieces I wrote were actually sermons. A number of the pieces I’ve written for my weekly column have had a spiritual nature, and I’ve got a column that appears in the newsletter of the Parsons’ District of the United Methodist Church. I’ve even had articles appear in the Kansas East Annual conference newsletter before it ceased publication.

“But this piece in Plain Truth Magazine is of a different level. I got paid 25 cents a word for it, which strikes me as a disincentive toward brevity.”
The piece, entitled Sugar-coated Theology, sprang from a trip to a Bible bookstore in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

“My family and I had met my brother in Tulsa last winter. He’d said he found a bookstore he wanted to share with us. It turns out he was more impressed with it than I was. I found it’s commercialism to be quite offensive, and when I got back, I wrote down my feelings in this piece and sent it in to Plain Truth. They accepted it last spring, but it didn’t appear until the November-December issue of their magazine.”

For Winters, whose weekly column An Okie in Exile appears in the Pittsburg Morning Sun and the Ada Evening News, this is a concrete way he can measure his progress as a writer.

“One of my favorite things is for people to come up to me or to send me an e-mail and tell me they liked this week’s column, but the people in Pittsburg and Ada have been so friendly and encouraging, I’ve always worried they were just being nice. This came from people that I don’t see every day, people that I don’t know. I like to please my friends, but it something different when recognition comes from a neutral source.”

This year Winters also published his second book Confessions of an Ice Cream Socialist which is a collection of his weekly columns plus previously unpublished articles and short stories.

“This book has been out since March, but there are still a lot of readers in town who somehow haven’t heard about it. I talk to people who say they liked my first book Grandma Dipped Snuff and want to know when I’m going to write another. Well I have, and it’s available.”

Winters says the book can be purchased from him, from Hastings in Pittsburg, Joplin, and Ada, and from Amazon.com.

With regard to his recent article Winters says, “Having been published nationally once just makes me eager to do it again. I’ve been trying with some other pieces. Writing is much more addictive that I ever thought it would be.”

[juantoo3]

Congratulations, Okie!

[okieinexile]

Thanks, Juan.

[lunamoth]

Great work, Okie! Congratulations.

lunamoth

[I, Brian]

Hey, congrats Bobby.

[pohaikawahine]

yes, congratulations Okie .... hmmm .... it was released on my 60th birthday .... an auspicious day .... pohaikawahine

[okieinexile]

Thanks, guys. Been busy over the last couple of weeks. I need a long vacation....