Blog

Last week I took a nostalgic look back at my Bee County series, which comes to an end with The Saddle Maker’s Son. Today, I want to look ahead with a peek at my new series, which will debut with Upon a Spring Breeze in 2017. This four-book series, entitled Every Amish Season, takes me…  Read More

The release of The Saddle Maker’s Son, the final installment of the Amish of Bee County series, has me feeling a little blue. I think this happens to many authors. We spend so much time with our characters in their homes that we get attached. Yes, I’m writing a couple of novellas set in Bee…  Read More

As a writer, you really never know what will serve as research fodder for your fiction. In 1978, as a college student I attended the University of Costa Rica, in San Jose, Costa Rica, for three semesters as an exchange student. There I met and dated a Salvadoran political refugee named Pedro. He told me…  Read More

The thing about setting out to write a novel about anything when you’re a fiction writer, is you usually—almost always—run into a topic you know nothing about. As a former newspaper reporter, I’m accustomed to this. I was expected to become an instant expert on a new topic every day. Sewer systems, zoning ordinances, AIDS,…  Read More

The youth minister of my church gave the message on Sunday. His name is Chris Baxter and the title of his talk (they don’t like to call it a sermon) was “So Easy Chris Baxter Can Do It.” Right off the top, one of the things he shared is that he is a “hot mess.”…  Read More

A study released recently says more and more children are growing up with an underdeveloped sense of empathy. In this world of social media and immediate gratification, they are frequently the subject of photos taken every day for the purposes of sharing with the world. It’s easy for them to get the sense that they are the center…  Read More