Gladden the Heart has officially released! New books come with a lot of official days that gladden the writer’s heart. Turning in that manuscript! Finished! Turning in revisions in response to the editors’ comments. Finished again! Receiving the PDF galley, when it’s laid out electronically and looks like the pages of book for the first […]
First, a picture. These two shelves in my office are rarely in the state in which you see them here—empty. They’re usually filled with research and notes related to whatever writing projects are in progress at any given time. Seriously, I think for the last five years, since the release of my first book, The […]
Two months after writing about being MIA on my own blog, I still am. Some of the reasons are the same. The migraine issues I wrote about in December (but which began in August) have crossed over into a diagnosis of “chronic.” Thankfully medication keeps them from being acute, though they are still daily, and […]
Years ago I worked in a retail fabric store. In the craft world, Christmas starts in July. During weeks of summer heat I measured and cut red and green Christmas fabrics while everybody in town with a sewing machine stacked up supplies to keep them going till December. In the book world, Christmas seems to […]
If you are looking for me on a Saturday afternoon, check the library. I’m there a lot with the purpose of adding words to my latest work-in-progress, which at the moment is a fifth addition to the Amish Turns of Time series. I’ve written before about libraries in my life. Sometimes unexpected things happen, like […]
Growing up and living during my younger adult years in Illinois, I suppose I knew about as much about the Great Depression as anyone in my circles. Stock market crash. High unemployment. The Grapes of Wrath. Sometimes my mother told a story that drew me past the facts to the emotions. But it was after […]
My mother was born in 1926—she recently turned 90—and was one of nine children in the family growing up in a small town in rural Arkansas. Her father lost his business in the Great Depression. Soon after that, while the family’s belongings were stored above another business, that building burned and they lost everything. It’s […]
I may have forgotten to mention something. First, an exercise in logic. 1. Many fiction series are trilogies. 2. Amish Turns of Times was proposed as three books. 3. Book 3, Brightest and Best, recently released. So you might conclude: therefore, Amish Turns of Time is finished. In fact, I know some of you have […]
Have you ever wondered what your ancestors were like ten or twelve generations ago? I’m fascinated by those genealogy television shows that trace census and military and property records back and discover amazing details. That’s a bit of what happened to me. I discovered a family line that traced back to some of the earliest […]
It’s 1918 on the border between Pennsylvania and Maryland. Sunday school, hymns, and threats of shunning disturb a fragile peace between the Pennsylvania Old Order and the more progressive “Marylanders.” And with family on both sides of the border, Clara Kuhn is caught in the middle of it all. And will she be able to […]
