Spirit of Hope, 5:41 to be available in Springfield, four other locations

Those of you east of the Joplin area will have five new retail outlets to buy copies of Spirit of Hope: The Year After the Joplin Tornado and 5:41: Stories from the Joplin Tornado after the beginning of August.

John Hacker and I have worked out a deal with Homegrown Books, which was started last year to benefit southwest Missouri writers and musicians and is building a network of coffee shops, tea rooms, and restaurants that will carry their books and CDs.

Our books will be available at the following locations:

-Keen Bean Coffee Roasters, 1031 South Market, Mount Vernon

-Maggie Mae's Tearoom, 206 West 4th Street, Miller

-MeMe's Country Cafe, Historic Downtown, Reed's Spring

-Denali Dreams, 316 E. Broadway, Monett

-Brown Egg Coffee Shop, 607 E. Madison, Springfield

The new locations join our Joplin area retail outlets which include Always Buying Books, Changing Hands Book Shop, Sleepygirls, Vintage Stock on the Mall, and Countryside Flowers in Joplin, Pat's Books in Carthage, and the Lamar Democrat in Lamar.

More retail outlets will be announced later.