Amy Campbell Butterflies Quilt Banner

Quilters and Quilts, Week 6 – Amy Campbell

Quilting is a form of storytelling. I love that about quilters and quilts. Storytelling in the design, but also in the process of quilting. And I’m excited to introduce you to my reader-friend, Amy Campbell, and share her story in this sixth week of the Quilters and Quilts Series. MONA: Who inspired your love of quilts and quilting? AMY: I love quilts …

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8 Sinclair Sisters Gift Ideas

 “Reading gives us a place to go when we have to stay where we are.” Unknown We all know books make great gifts. What makes an even better present? A themed gift package centered around a book. In case you might like to “gift” my Sinclair Sisters of Cripple Creek books this Christmas, I decided to add to the fun and put …

Doc Susie bag

Doc Susie & Book Giveaway

You never know who you might meet in Cripple Creek, Colorado! While I was in Cripple Creek in August to participate in the Gold Camp Days and Western Literature Festival, I made Wyatt Earp’s acquaintance through a program presented by his grandson, Wyatt Earp. Then during a book signing at the Cripple Creek District Museum, I met Doc Susie, played by Hedy Boyce. …

Map of Cripple Creek Cropped

Reading with a Map and Making an Itinerary

Charles and Clara Tanner are headed to Cripple Creek, Colorado, this month to visit the landmarks mentioned in my Sinclair Sisters of Cripple Creek Series. Sweet fans of my fiction, the couple gave me permission to share excerpts from their notes to me. December 2012 Dear Mrs. Hodgson, What a blessing the four books on the Sinclair sisters have been to myself and …

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Prairie Song Campfire Supper

Boney’s turn to cook supper. A fact that has the Boone’s Lick Wagon Train Company captain, Garrett Cowlishaw, and the other four trail hands sticking close to camp. All the wagons are set in their curved line, the livestock graze hobbled in the meadow, and the company’s children haul buckets of water up from the creek. Men are greasing wheels …

Carol Mercantile interior – AZ Historical Museum

19th Century Mercantiles

19TH CENTURY MERCANTILES Some of my earliest memories involve shopping trips with my mother, back in the . . . well, let’s just say it was a few decades ago. She’d make a list of all the places we had to go—the hardware store for the screws and bolts my dad needed for a project; the paint store for pink …

Essential Handbook for Victorian Etiquette

Sinclair Sisters Fun and Yum for Book Clubs

Do the members of your book club or reading group enjoy reading series and spending time with an ensemble cast? If so, the four Sinclair Sisters of Cripple Creek Series might be a great fit. And I’m happy to say the 1890s Colorado mining camp series lends itself well to having fun with Victorian, Old West, Mining Camp flair. Your group might want a …

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Castes of Yellow

Where do novelists find a title for a work of fiction? Anywhere, and everywhere. For Maren Jensen’s story, I drew inspiration for my book title from a favorite poem, Castes of Yellow by Viola Jacobson Berg. Mrs. Berg’s two books on poetic forms–Pathways for the Poet and Poet’s Treasury: Second Book of All New Patterns have served as resources I used to teach myself how to …

Me in Arch

Research Trip for The Quilted Heart: 1st Stop, Gateway Arch

In March 2012, after thirteen years, I returned to St. Louis and St. Charles, Missouri. This time, as a historical novelist writing for WaterBrook Multnomah, to do research for my new series, The Quilted Heart. The post Civil War mid-1860s provides the historical backdrop for my three Quilted Heart eBook novellas. First stop: The Gateway Arch and the Museum of Westward Expansion in St. Louis. Everything …

Bob’s Corner: No E-Reader, No Problem

Howdy from Bob’s corner! TODAY is Release Day for Dandelions on the Wind, the first novella in Mona’s new series, The Quilted Heart. The three mid-1860s stories are available this spring exlusively in e-Book format, but you don’t need a fancy schmancy handheld e-Reader to read Dandelions on the Wind. Since you’re reading this post, I’m guessing you already have a computer, iPod/iPad/iPhone, Android …