It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going … [Read more...]

Recently I came across a note from a friend that was a reminder of something wonderful God did for me a few years ago when we were going through a rough patch. My wonderful, hard-working husband had been laid off from a job he'd held for twenty-five years, and while he established his own business, we were on an incredibly tight budget. We thought we already lived quite frugally. Neither of us … [Read more...]

Those of us who write the stories that sit between the front and back covers of books are artists.  But so are the people who design the front and back covers of books.  Don't you agree? I'm endlessly interested in covers!  A good book cover is a thing of beauty and tricky to achieve because it has to accomplish several things simultaneously.  To me, a book cover should: Communicate the … [Read more...]

I grew up in Tucker, Georgia, near Stone Mountain State Park. I climbed that granite mountain countless times in the first 22 years of my life (and not since!). I used real pies for my team's "pie graphs" in my senior college capstone business class—Chocolate Chess Pie and Buttermilk Pie! We won the simulation and got an A in the course—all due to the incredible smarts of my team mates, … [Read more...]

1. I grew up in New York State in the Hudson Valley about 60 miles north of New York City. As the middle sister of three, I’m blessed to have two built-in, lifelong, best friends.2. I was a huge fan of the Beatles as a teenager and heard them perform in person twice—once in Atlantic City, and once in Shea Stadium in NYC. The stadium held 56,000 screaming Beatles’ fans and afterward it seemed like … [Read more...]