In 1992, we moved into a house in a small development--only 44 houses total, if memory serves. I wanted to invest in my neighbor's lives, so I made up some flyers and walked around the neighborhood, leaving one on each neighbor's porch. "Come join the book club," it said. "We'll read SNOW IN AUGUST." (A wonderful book I doubted anyone else had read.) That night, I made some cookies and coffee … [Read more...]

I recently asked, "How old were you when you discovered your love of reading?" on my Facebook author page. I found the answers fascinating and heartwarming! For this post, I'm hitting on the themes I saw repeated again and again. First Grade This was the most common answer! For numerous women, learning to read went hand in hand with loving to read. "I learned to read in first grade. I … [Read more...]

I'm reaching the end of a season of intense writing. It's been so good because 14 months ago, I thought my writing days might be over. Then the floodgates opened and I've written four books under contract in less than a year. It's been intense y'all! It's also been really fun. But it's meant I've had to pull out all of my tricks to make it work. This current book I'm writing will be … [Read more...]

Hello! I'm Christen Krumm, author of the new Sunrise novel, On the Golden Cliffs. I'm really excited to be here with Inspired by Life and Fiction! While writing On the Golden Cliffs, my family and I lived in both a two-bedroom apartment as well as a 250-foot RV (after we moved out of said apartment due to a pipe bursting and the apartment flooding). Being in small spaces with three kids between … [Read more...]

Spring has finally—and abruptly—arrived here in Minnesota. On Friday, there was still snow on my little garden plot of perennials. On Saturday, it had melted enough that I could rake away the remaining leaves from last autumn. Two days later, my crocuses bloomed. Spring drew on: she was indeed already come; the frosts of winter had ceased; its snows were melted…and a greenness grew over … [Read more...]

One nice thing about being a writer is that any time something goes wrong in life, a writer says to herself, "I wonder how I could use this in a book..." Ken and I are still traveling in Texas and New Mexico. We've had a great trip and everything has gone so wonderfully well that we really weren't surprised when Sunday night as we pulled into Pecos, Texas on our way from a visit to Carlsbad … [Read more...]