"Every 10 years, you have to reinvent yourself."

That's the advice of local historical fiction author Dac Crossley, Jr.

A retired professor of ecology at the University of Georgia, Crossley decided to do exactly that years ago when he flipped the roles and enrolled as a student in a murder mystery writing course at the Georgia Center for Continuing Education.  It didn't take him long to discover, however, that the genre wasn't quite right for him.

Though he has lived in northeast Georgia since he was 24-years-old, the Athens resident remains passionate about his birth state of Texas and his family's rich history tied to the Old West. It's the motivation he had to reinvent himself as a writer of western novels.

Crossley found it easy to draw on his family for stories. His mother and grandmother were both great storytellers, he said, and, as a child, he heard tales of everything from gunfighters to local politics.

To date Crossley has self-published three novels:"Guns Across the Rio", "Return of the Texas Ranger", and  "Escape from the Alamo,"and a fourth is in the works.

You can pick up an autographed copy of one (or three!) on Saturdays at the Oconee Farmers Market.

Crossley is also a member of the Texas swing and bluegrass band, The Fresh Water Mussels.  On certain Saturdays at the market you can catch him and a fellow band member or two jamming out at his vendor booth.

Here is a list of items vendors will have on hand this Saturday from 8 a.m. until 1 p.m. on the back lawn of Eagle Tavern:

• Ripe tomatoes
• Sweet corn
• Peas
• Squash
• Butterbeans
• Garlic
• Greens
• Snap beans
• Cucumbers
• Shiitake mushrooms
• Potatoes
• Grass-fed Senepol and Angus-cross beef
• Blueberries
• Blackberries
• Fresh herbs
• Cut flowers
• Jams
• Soaps
• Birdhouses
• Local wildflower honey
• Lip balms
• Shea butter products
• Decorated gourds
• Gourd instruments
• Recycled jewelry
• Boiled and fried peanuts
• Pork skins
• Beef and turkey jerky
• Pickles on a stick