I didn’t set out to write a series of novels about the Oregon Trail and settlement of Oregon. I only intended to write one historical novel. But I have now published five books in my historical fiction series, and I’m working on the sixth, with a seventh planned. How did […]
In my current work-in-progress, which takes place in 1864, some of my characters are traveling toward Fort Boise. In 1864, Fort Boise was in its second location, where the current city of Boise, Idaho, is located. In 1834, the original Fort Boise began as a fur trading post on the […]
The United States just celebrated its 245th birthday on Sunday, July 4, 2021. In recognition of this event, last week I created a graphic to use in promoting my novel, Lead Me Home. I used an image of the current U.S. flag in the graphic, but that got me thinking […]
Last week I attended my first Historical Novel Society conference. I’ve been to other writing conferences in the past, but this was special, because historical fiction writers are my tribe. The conference was virtual, and the sessions were recorded and will be posted for attendees to review, so I have […]
Six years ago in late April, my husband and I drove from Washington State to our home in Kansas City. I had decided to buy my father’s car from his estate, and we needed to get it across country. We drove much of the Oregon Trail route—in reverse, from west […]
WordPress tells me this is my 900th post on this blog. At an average of around 500 words/post, that’s 450,000 words, or about four novels. As I wrote in my last post, it takes me 16-20 hours a month to write two posts per week, and I could probably write […]
As I mentioned in a recent post, the river cruise my husband and I were supposed to take in May was canceled. Periodically, I search “river cruises” and moon over the itineraries, thinking of future trips. Where might we go to escape the current boredom of life at home? So […]
I’ve learned most of my history through historical fiction. Not all, but most of it. Even back in grade-school days, I read a lot of historical fiction—the Little House series, Caddie Woodlawn, What Katy Did, The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, Anne of Green […]
I recently discovered that WordPress could show me how many words total I have written on this blog. From January 2012 when I began blogging through 2019, I posted 502,077 words. That’s five good-sized novels. Before I published my first novel, I was told at writing conferences to build an […]
I’ve written before about viewing exhibits at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City. I was there again shortly before Christmas, this time to see a temporary exhibit of daguerreotypes taken of miners and locations associated with the California Gold Rush. Since this was the subject of my novel, […]
