Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “One Writer’s Journal”
What I say is, a town isn’t a town without a bookstore. It may call itself a town, but unless it’s got a bookstore, it knows it’s not fooling a soul. ~Neil Gaiman, American Gods My hometown is small. It has a three block downtown area. More businesses spill out around it. Out on the bypass, more businesses draw people. …
“Even the woodpecker owes his success to the fact that he uses his head and keeps pecking away until he finishes the job he starts.” Coleman Cox When I was a young girl, maybe ten, I discovered a joy in stringing words together to write a story. I loved words. I loved reading. I loved writing. I didn’t love talking …
“The setting in a book is as much a character to me as the people who populate the story.” ― Joie Lesin A story has to have a setting whether that place is real or imagined. It can be an actual place with a name and a history or one imagined with or without a name and with whatever history …
Back when I was writing my Hidden Springs mysteries, I hadn’t had a cat for years and years. When I was a kid, cats were always around. Barn cats. Farm cats. My mother even had a cat she let in the house. When I was a kid, I was surprised at that, but Mom loved Maggie. My favorite aunt was …
Often when I do a book talk and share about my Shaker books, people, usually women, say how they can’t imagine why anyone would be a Shaker. I have some of the same feelings as they do because I can’t imagine giving up my individual family to live in such a group where all are to act and live as …
In 2008, my first Shaker book, The Outsider, was published. I eventually wrote seven more Shaker books. The Refuge is the last Shaker book I’ve written. Since I’m having a giveaway here for that Shaker book, this seemed a perfect time to share once again some of the sayings attributed to the Shakers. I liked being able to includes some …
I love it when some of my books are on e-book sale for super low prices. Right now, all three of my Hidden Springs mysteries are only 99 cents at many online booksellers, Amazon, Kobo, B&N along with others.Or you can go to my website and check out the link on my book pages for my Hidden Springs Mysteries, Murder …
Fall is here. The trees will soon be turning color. That made me think about one of my books that has a definitely autumn scene cover. The Refuge is the last Shaker book I wrote. It’s been out a few years, but I posted about it today on my Facebook Shaker Wednesday. Since that had the book on my mind, …
Yesterday was the Cave Run Storytelling Festival here in Kentucky at Cave Run Lake. I suppose it’s not too hard to understand why I love storytelling. I’ve been called a storyteller, but I do my story telling on paper or the computer page. At the Storytelling Festival, these storytellers stand up on a stage with a microphone and tell stories …
Sometimes a writer gets something fun in the mail – a letter handwritten in an envelope with a stamp on it that lands in said writer’s mailbox. Years ago when I was writing books for younger readers, it wasn’t unusual to find one of those letters in my mailbox. I exchanged letters over several years with a young girl …