Naomi Sue,

You are really in luck. Aside from having me in your area (Gulf Shores, Perdido Key Fla) you are about to have the world's greatest songwriter's festival in November in that area.

The Frank Brown International Songwriter's Festival will be from nov. 11-22. About 300 of Nashville's biggest writers come down for ten days of shows and hanging out. GO to www.fbsif.com for info.

I host my own workshop the first weekend and you might like to come find out about that. A lot of great people and you can hang out with us, go to shows, meet a lot of the writers. And it is wives, girlfriends, etc. none of that hotel business. You could even bring your parents.

I perform almost every night and there are about 15 different venues. It is truely the best songwriting event I know of and is pretty much how I met every Nashville hit writer I have ever worked with.

SO you are welcome to join us. Also, Steven Veal is the NSAI coordinator down there, go to www.Nashvillesongwriters.com and the "Silver Moon" lounge, across from the Florabama lounge (Right on the beach highway on the state line has a writer's night every Thursday. Last week I hosted.

I will also be down for the Shrimp festival next month if you can't wait that long. Feel free to contact me and the other sites I mentioned. There is a lot of stuff going on all around you. Just have to be aware of it.

MAB