A book launch is taking place this Saturday at the Portage Regional Library. Sharron Arksey is reading from "The Waiting Place". Arksey says it's not her first work.

Sharron Arksey"I had published one book earlier," she explains. "It was a non-fiction piece. I wrote a column for the Graphic and the Herald-Leader press for 25 years. So, I did a compilation of a selection of those columns. I did that in the year 2000. This is my first novel."

She says the plot takes place in a rural setting on a mixed grain and cattle farm. It's about a young woman having her first child, and tells the story throughout her entire pregnancy. Arksey says she's writing from what she knows about farm life, having experienced many of the elements mentioned throughout the book although the story itself is fictional. She describes it as an overview of life on the farm, particularly for women.

"I guess I'm writing what I know," says Arksey. "I am a farm-wife, although my husband and I are now retired from the farm. I'm writing about my life, although I want to say that it is fiction, not non-fiction. The life that I'm writing about is something that in many ways I had lived."

Book launch begins at 1:30 p.m. and takes place until 3:00 p.m.