My friend Meg sent me this book some time ago and I just fell in love with it. Here’s the back-cover copy: “Ruby Lavender and Miss Eula are a pretty good team, for a couple of chicken thieves. What other granddaughter-grandmother duo would drive the getaway car for chickens rescue from the slaughterhouse, or paint…
I’m a writer. My strength is words. For decades, the best I could do in the pictures department was stick figures … as though the right side of my brain never got past first grade. Then I discovered collage and art journaling. I used to think that collage was cheating, kind of. You took other…
Every author has her favorite part of the process. Some like opening that bright new page and typing “Chapter One” at the top. Some like to dive into the mist and find out where they’re going later. Some love the editing stage. I like the synopsis, which I always write first. I can hear authors…
Are thank-you notes making a comeback? The reason I wonder is that after at least two decades of gratitude silence—even following weddings—I’ve received two thank-you notes in the span of a month. I love thank-you notes. They’re like a gift that comes in the mail, unannounced and unexpected, that just brightens your day. No matter…
In September 2011, The Wounded Heart, the first book in my Amish Quilt trilogy, will be released. Central to the story, as the trilogy title suggests, is a quilt that my three Amish heroines are making together. When I first pitched the idea to my editor, the first thing she said was, “What a great…