Kindle Edition Amazon JanaBerryArty.com Category:  Essays Publisher: Create Space ISBN-10:  0985306912 Pages: 224 Copyright: November 2013 ISBN-13: 9780985306915 Southern Short Stories and human interest stories. Most were drawn from my experiences of growing up in the south in the 1950s and 1960s  The Ivy Stays Green is composed of forty six short stories. I would appreciate your giving my first book a try. Thank You, Janet Brice Parker   Excerpt I was outside throwing the ball with Willoughby. Our dog is named after my great, great grandfather. Anyway, it was so bleak out there, it was enough to cause a psychotic reaction. I've been looking up at this one tree when I’m out there with my dog. I've watched it through all of the seasons and needless to say, it's nakedness has no appeal. I look up at it and I pray and thank God for the seasons because I know that's what I'm supposed to do. And I know there's an order to things and we need to be thankful for all of it, and how everything works together. But I still want to move to Florida. I can thank the Lord for things down there. We can't move to Florida right now. I know that. Eddie’s got to retire and he's eight years younger than I am. I might be dead by then. Anyway, I was throwing the ball and looking up at that tree and thinking about Ricie. Then I noticed how the Ivy spills over the walls around the driveway and how it's just about everywhere on this plot of land where our house sits. Lately, I've been spending a lot of time in the sunroom getting my “light therapy” as they refer to it these days. The sun pours into that room and I look at the palm plant I’m trying to care for through the winter. I think it might make it. I know spring will eventually get here like it always does. Right now, I’m just going to go outside, throw the ball with Willoughby, and be glad that the ivy stays green.

Author - Lola S. Scoby
“Janet Brice Parker is a writer with heart, and she is drawn to share the things she loves. A visual artist as well as writer, her stories come alive through her perceptive eye for the telling detail. Vivid portrayal rather than overt nostalgia, will summon you to look again into your own memories. These stories are grounded in a rooted sense of place; and, with them, the author adds her voice to the long legacy of southern writers. I highly recommend, The Ivy Stays Green if you want to suddenly see the beauty of life and feel affirmed in the ultimate goodness of things.”

Lola S. Scobey, author “Willie Nelson” Country Outlaw” and “Dolly: Daughter of the South”


Author - Pamela June Kimmell
“Janet Brice Parker’s writing is like sipping a glass of cold tea on a hot summer’s day. Delightful and refreshing. Her masterful weaving of memories and reality holds the reader captive from the first word to the last. There is something in each tale for us to savor and the charm of the old south rings through in many of Parker’s recollections. Don’t deny yourself the pleasure of reading this treasure of a book, and when you’ve finished reading, pass it on to someone you love.”

Pamela June Kimmell, Author of “The Mystery of David’s Bridge,” published, 2004 by Hilliard & Harris.