After growing up listening to lots of country slang - being spoken by everyone from close kin to far-off third cousins twice removed as well as your friends and neighbors – I figured the term “shootin' the bull” was commonplace. Therefore, it surprised me when someone not accustomed to such regional phrases asked me what it meant to “shoot the bull.”

This quaint snippet of Southern phraseology is, simply put, merely a term used to describe a chat session or conversation where the truth might be stretched just a bit. It also brings to mind similar phrases such as: just hangin' out; shootin' the breeze; chewin' the fat; or even tellin' tall tales.

“Shootin' the bull” also brings to mind the notion of a suggestion or idea being “pure bull,” as in totally fabricated. That's what a lot of these stories are – my imagination gone wild on any given topic. While many of these short stories indeed fall under the category of “pure bull,” some of them are based on reality and my interpretation of the facts. So even when the topic is serious, it's still just my opinion of it that is presented here.

This collection of short tales includes many of the newspaper columns I wrote while serving as editor of my local hometown newspaper, the News-Herald. I was head of the news department at the paper from 1990 to 2008 and during that period, I wrote a lot of personal columns and humor columns.  Shootin' More Bull is the second book of the Bull trilogy. The first book, Shootin' the Bull, was published in summer 2015 and the third book, scheduled to be released in December 2015, will be Still Shootin' the Bull. A portion of the proceeds of all three books will be donated to organizations that help the less fortunate.

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Linda Lea Brewer is a former journalist and editor with 27 years of newspaper experience. She has received numerous writing awards, including 10 state press association awards for personal and humor column writing and 19 (four 1st place) for opinion pieces.