I was lucky, growing up, and I know it. We lived in the corn-and-beans country of rural Illinois, but my father was a reader and took me with him to the local Carnegie library every Saturday. Nobody ever told me I couldn’t read something that interested me. I had all the freedom I needed to […]

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If you’ve read China Bayles’ latest mystery, Hemlock, you may be curious about Elizabeth Blackwell, the author of The Curious Herbal andthe main character in my historical novel-within-a-novel. So was I. Curious, that is–because I love using true stories as the basis of fiction. And this part of my story is true—as true as historians […]

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In the first post in this 3-part series, I wrote about why I chose to begin doing research into the life of Rose Wilder Lane. In this post, I’ll continue the story. When I first learned about Rose, back in the early 1970s, I had no idea that, years later, I would write a novel […]

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This post was originally published at HerStories, a Story Circle Network blog (June 10, 2013). I’m reprinting it here (slightly revised) at the request of friends and fans who watched the recent American Masters program on Laura Ingalls Wilder and were disappointed (as I was) in its scant depiction of Rose’s life and the role she […]

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We’re having a Book Giveaway to celebrate the upcoming publication of The Darling Dahlias and the Voodoo Lily–coming later this month. Win these four signed hardcovers for yourself or for gifting. Quick-and-easy entry–simply comment below, telling us what you like best about the Dahlias. Continental U.S. only, please. One entry per person. Comments close on […]

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The second Pecan Springs novella trilogy is coming out this week! Available right now on Kindle, it will shortly be available on Nook and iBooks. Here’s the scoop, via my author’s note at the beginning of the book. If you’re looking for an entertaining (and, I hope, thought-provoking) read, this might suit you. Enjoy, with […]

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            Last week was the 75th anniversary of V-E Day, the day when Nazi Germany formally surrendered to the Allies. It  reminded me of a telling pair of photographs that I dug up when I was doing the research for one of my favorite writing projects: a biographical novel called […]

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This enchanting 1957 cat-memoir by May Sarton may be the grandmother of the current litter of cat-cozies, a fact that may or may not endear it to you, depending on how you feel about cats and cozies. I ran across it on my shelf last week and sat down with it immediately, remembering the great […]

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When In Cold Blood was published in 1965, Truman Capote’s book was a landmark, widely promoted as a factually true account of the 1959 murder of the Clutter family in a small town in Kansas, and of the investigation, the trial and appeals, and the execution of the two convicted killers. Capote (with his longtime friend […]

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