SPECIAL TO THE JOURNAL:

Outskirts Press—the fastest growing full-service self-publishing and book marketing company—recently announced the release of “The Big Red Clock” by Dr. Patricia Floyd. The children’s story features a big red clock that sits in the center of a small town in Alabama known as the Friendliest City in the South.

The Big Red Clock was a proud and happy clock, a focal point of Friendly City, where everyone greeted him as they passed by and took note of the time. But one day storms damaged his working parts, and he ended up in a dusty, dark warehouse for many months.

The city leaders eventually sent him to be repaired at the Tick-Tock Bells and Clock Factory Hospital in Cincinnati. There, the Big Red Clock was reunited with his clock family, but he missed his friends in Friendly City.

It took a long time for the Big Red Clock to recover, but finally he was rushed back to Friendly City. All the happy people gathered around as he was placed prominently on his Big Red Post to tell all the Friendly people when it was time to go to work or school, when it was time to go to lunch and when it was time to go home and have dinner with their families.

Today, the real Big Red Clock stands proudly in the small, rural town of Luverne, Alabama, where author Floyd was born and raised. Her story resonates with love and pride for her hometown and its people.

At 64 pages, “The Big Red Clock” is available online through Outskirts Press at www.outskirtspress.com/bookstore. It is sold through Amazon and Barnes and Noble for a maximum trade discount in quantities of 10 or more, and is being aggressively promoted to appropriate markets with a focus on the juvenile fiction category.

Floyd received her PhD from Florida State University. Retired after 45 years of teaching at all levels in public education, and as university professor of undergraduate and graduate students, she is the co-author of 12 college textbooks. Floyd is an avid international traveler, a Belted Galloway cattle rancher, a volunteer, actress, community activist and the founder of “Voices of Luverne” and “Voices of Crenshaw County.” She loves working with people, helping students and making a difference in the world.