Eight Miles of Muddy Road is the story of Sylvia Nickels' years growing up in the very rural Georgia world of cotton fields and red dirt roads. It is told via vignettes of how life was lived by most of the population of that era of poverty. Strong family ties sustained Sylvia, her parents, and seven siblings as the slowly rising tide of America's post-World War II economy lifted the country. Eventually she married and moved to the beautiful foothills of East Tennessee, which she has called home for many years. After a career in the telephony industry she turned her hand to writing, wrote a newspaper column for four years, and has published books in two mystery series as well as several stand alone novels.