Last summer, my husband and I spent three months in the tiny town of Shell, Wyoming, population 50, at the base of the Big Horn Mountains. In our RV, we performed what is called “work-camping” at Shell Campground and Cabins. Mainly my husband worked. We gave them 20 hours a week in return for a […]
Behind the Scenes: Author Susan M. Baganz and the tomboys
A couple of things went into writing Donuts & Detours. I was inspired by a young woman I once knew who hid her femininity and had a rocky past with her family of origin. I added that to another young woman who loved working on cars. Her parents tried to dissuade her from that line […]
Behind the Scenes: Author Bonnie Engstrom answers reader questions
As soon as someone asks what you do, the first question is either “When did you start to write?” or “How long have you been writing?” No one ever asks how long you’ve been published. Many people view writing a book like an ethereal cloud to grasp. They don’t understand how much hard work it […]
Behind the Scenes: Author Glenn Haggerty thinks like a bad guy
My story ideas usually start with a visualization of a scene in my head, often a dramatic moment. So, my novel Chase was initially just a picture in my mind: a bad-guy drug-dealer meets with one of his runners. The incident then turned into a scene which expanded into a full-length novel. Interestingly, I ended up cutting […]
Behind the Scenes: Author Pamela S. Meyers dreamed of traveling back in time
Having grown up in the small resort town of Lake Geneva, WI, I’d heard for as long as I could remember how the wealthy of Chicago had come north to Geneva Lake after the Great Chicago Fire to build large (sometimes gargantuan) homes on the lakeshore to house their families while the city was rebuilt. […]
Behind the Scenes: Author Donna Schlachter loves “The Fugitive”
The idea for this story came from a love of a movie and a friend with a great train story to share. The movie was “The Fugitive,” both the original series pilot and the more recent remake. I loved the idea of a train ride leading to a second chance. My friend had recently taken […]
Behind the Scenes: Author Lisa J. Flickinger tells of a childhood trip
The original seed for my latest release Fool’s Notion was planted long before I put pen to paper (fingers to keyboard). When I was nine years old, my family packed foodstuffs, clothing, and my grandmother in our brown panel van and drove eighteen hundred miles to Los Angeles for a vacation. We toured the amazing Disneyland, […]
Behind the Scenes: Author Shannon Taylor Vannatter & the city girl living in an abandoned farmhouse
A few years back, a young single woman from our church had to move out of her apartment on very short notice. The only new place she could find where she could move in quickly was in the country. The house belonged to another church member, but it was old and had been uninhabited for […]
Behind the Scenes: Author Catherine Castle never caught the bouquet …
Everyone knows that the lucky lady to catch a bride’s bouquet will be the next one to get married. But do you know where that tradition came from? As early as the 1300’s, getting a piece of the bride’s dress was considered lucky, so female guests would try to tear off a piece of the […]
Behind the Scenes: Author Laurie Lucking constructs fantasy-world religion
Christian fantasy is one of my favorite genres to read, but until I started writing my own novel, I never realized how tricky it can be to handle religion in a fantasy context. Would the people of a fantasy world approach religion the same way we do? If not, how far can their religious practices […]