Haunting Books: Too Close to the Nightly News for Comfort
I thought about only including historical fiction in my “haunting books” this year, but a few novels set in current times haunted me more—because their plots are so similar to what we see in the news all too often. These novels are Luckiest Girl Alive, by Jessica Knoll, This Is Where It Ends, by Marieke […]
Houses in Oregon in the 1840s and 1850s
I keep finding new topics that I need to research as I write my historical novels. While I am finishing my current work-in-progress, I am also starting to think about my next book. That next book will begin in 1850, but I don’t yet know how long its timeline will continue. So far, I have […]
The Afghan My Grandmother Made Me
The other evening my husband pulled an old throw out of the closet and settled in for a nap. We haven’t used this afghan in years—it’s a bright variegated blue and white random knit, and although we have a lot of blue in our home, this blanket doesn’t really fit in. The acrylic yarn and […]
Haunting Books: World War I and Its Aftermath
Today’s “haunting book” post features two historical novels, Fall of Giants, by Ken Follett, and A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor Towles. Follett’s book is a panorama of Europe and the U.S. from before World War I through that war’s conclusion. Towles’s book is an exquisite cameo of life in Russia after World War I […]
Impact of Shorter Attention Spans on Readers and Writers
Twice in one day last week, I encountered references to people’s reduced ability to focus these days. Our shorter attention spans are due largely to the ever-present distractions from technology—and I know this is true, based on my own behavior. The first time this issue surfaced was during the Association of Missouri Mediators conference I […]
Haunting Books: Three Historical Novels About the West
Each October I’ve devoted one or more posts to the “haunting books” I’ve read during the past year—books that stay with me long after I’ve read them. This year, I’ve been diligent about keeping a list, so I have more than enough books to discuss. In this post, I’ve decided to focus on three historical […]
On THE ARTIST’S WAY and the Truth in Fiction
I’ve mentioned before that I attended a diversity program called “Women Supporting Women” in late September 2005. When I declared to the other participants in that program, “I will write a book before I die,” one of the women in the group handed me a Post-It note. On that Post-It, she wrote a quote from […]
After Forty Years, I Wonder—Did He Ever Propose or Not?
There is one issue that I continue to debate with my husband of almost forty years—did he ever ask me to marry him or not? He swears he did, but I don’t remember it. You’d think a girl would remember something like that if it had happened, wouldn’t you? Even if it took place forty […]
Help Me With My Next Book Cover—Take the Poll
I’m hard at work editing my next historical novel, titled Forever Mine: Love Along the Oregon Trail. And I’m starting to think about the cover image for the book. Here are five possible covers. Which do you like best? Click on this link to vote for the cover you like best. I will be adjusting […]
The Luck of the Early California Gold Miners
Most of my historical posts this year have been about the Oregon Trail, because I’m working on another novel about an emigrant wagon train to Oregon. But this post is about the Gold Rush, the subject of my last novel, Now I’m Found. In April 2016, I wrote a post entitled “How Much Gold Was […]