Growing up as a member of a ranching family in Branson, a small town in southeastern Colorado, provided author Larada Horner-Miller a treasure-trove of stories, characters, and emotional moments that make up her touching memoir, This Tumbleweed Landed. This collection of poems and prose transports readers back to rural America during the fifties and sixties, to one idyllic, tight-knit community in particular. Each of the book's eight sections weaves a nostalgic yarn that tells of playtimes with friends and neighbors, favorite hiding places, living without a telephone for the first eleven years of life, and the touching memories of growing up in a ranching community. Whether it is Saturday night dances or hot days working with 4-H at the county fair, the poems and pages roll along like a tumbleweed in search of a place to land. Readers will find themselves longing to go back to this very specific time and place, whether they actually experienced it in their own lives or not.
Read about this daddy's little girl and her adventures that mold and shape her formative years. Where will this tumbleweed land, and what kind of woman will she be when she finally arrives?
Larada Horner-Miller is a poet, essayist and accomplished multi-genre author who holds a bachelor’s degree in English, with a minor in Spanish and a master of education degree in Integrating Technology into the Classroom. She is the accomplished author of nine award-winning memoirs, historical fiction, a biography and poetry works plus three self-published cookbooks. She has also recorded three audiobooks.
Her recent release, Was It A Dream?: Navigating Life's Journey Through Poetry, won a gold award in the Global Book Awards. Journey through life's peaks and valleys in "Was It a Dream?" Award-winning poet Larada Horner-Miller transforms personal struggles into universal truths in this first book in a four-book poetry collection. From loss and heartbreak to wonder and whimsy, these verses explore a woman's path through grief to hope. Experience profound reflections on family, nature, travel, and the resilient human spirit in this engaging installment of the Navigating Life's Journey Through Poetry series.
Her sixth book, Coronavirus Reflections: Bitter or Better, is available in paperback and four e-book formats. Larada offers the reader the opportunity to look back at 2020 and the global pandemic through her prose and poetry through reading, then reflecting and responding. She addresses all the emotions she felt during this overwhelming time and leads the reader through to a self-access: bitter or better? Recently this book won the 2023 New Mexico/Arizona Book Award in the Self Help/Guides category. It also won the 2022 New Mexico/Arizona Book Award in the Body, Mind & Spirit category.
Her fifth book is the authorized memoir and biography of world-renown square dance caller Marshall “Flip” Flippo. Just Another Square Dance Caller, Biography of Marshall Flippo is available now in hardback, paperback and four e-book formats. Recently Just Another Square Dance Caller won two awards: Book Excellence Awards Finalist and Silver award for eLit. Book Awards.
Another recent book of hers, A Time to Grow Up-A Daughter's Grief Memoir has won many awards including being a 2018 Book Excellence Awards Finalist in the Memoir category at the New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards and a 2018 Independent Press Distinguished Favorites Award in the Memoir category. Horner-Miller has also been a past national presenter at the Women Writing the West Conference and is currently the creator of Memoir Workshops for others who want to share their family’s legacies through words.
Larada and her husband, Lin, enjoy being nestled in the mountains above Albuquerque, New Mexico, near the village of Tijeras. When not writing books, this passionate, energetic, and enthusiastic woman loves to spend time kicking up her heels at square dancing gatherings, traveling, knitting, and reading.
As co-manager of her family’s southeastern Colorado ranch, she enjoys spending time exploring her family’s historic ranch and reminiscing with her brother and his children about their mom, dad, and granddad.