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 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 […]
Behind the Scenes: Author Eleanor Gustafson confronts spiritual opposition
Things have not gone smoothly with my upcoming novel, An Unpresentable Glory. The long search for a publisher was not unusual. Been there, done that. A computer scam, however, proved costly in money and time. Think— Changing bank accounts and credit cards, Informing autopay groups, Installing computer security programs, Disabling Trojan-Horse viruses. Spent an hour […]
Behind The Scenes: Author Barbara M. Britton Finds A New Enemy For Nehemiah
The story of Nehemiah is one of my favorite books of the Bible. Nehemiah was a man of many talents. He was: cupbearer to King Artaxerxes, governor of Judah, a man of prayer, and a construction supervisor. Nehemiah left the king’s palace to help rebuild the wall around Jerusalem. What makes this story a writer’s […]
Behind the Scenes: Author Carole Brown listened to her mother’s stories of World War II
Do you have a favorite military picture of a loved one? My journey into learning about the spies of World War II begin with my mother’s tales of living through the war and the pictures I saw. The romance, bravery, fashions, vocabulary, the shows and music, so much nostalgia—all of it fostered a love of this […]
Behind the Scenes: How Author Ada Brownell plots a story
Anytime you pick up a work of fiction, you’ll find a plot. Writers often talk about plotting. Even way back, it sounded boring to me. Too similar to an outline. But when I sat down to write my recent novels, the first, Joe the Dreamer: The Castle and the Catapult, published in 2013; The Lady […]
Behind the Scenes: Author Becky Melby tastes the cherries of Door County
If you look at a map of Wisconsin, Door County is the tip of the thumb of the mitten-shaped state—the part that gets frostbit on nippy winter days. This location, with its cooler spring months, makes Door County the perfect place for growing yummy, tart Montmorency cherries. At their peak in the 1950s, 700 cherry […]
Behind the Scenes: Author June Foster confronts flawed characters
Prescription for Romance is the sequel to Letting Go, both set in small town Alabama. Scott Townsend made a brief appearance in the first book and dated the heroine. He was a nice guy then. Unselfish, thoughtful, sweet. Or so I thought. He didn’t tell me much in that first book. It wasn’t until Prescription […]
Behind the Scenes: Author Gail Kittleson on War, Magic and Irony
Roald Dahl, who created the incredibly engaging tales my children and I used to read together, said “And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.” It may seem strange […]