When I researched the 1840s for my Oregon Trail novels, I started with the big picture—the general route the emigrants took, their modes of transportation, what was going on in the East at the time, etc. Much of this research never made its way into my early drafts, but I […]
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Along the Way Home, by Christi Corbett – A Novel About the Oregon Trail
Today I am hosting Christi Corbett, author of the new novel, Along the Way Home, about travelers on the Oregon Trail in 1843 (the year of Jesse Applegate’s migration). Here is my interview with Christi about her book: Theresa: Can you give us a brief synopsis of Along the Way […]
Continue readingWhat Books Don’t (or Won’t) You Read?
It just so happened that last Wednesday, I read two articles about when and why readers quit reading a book before they finish it. One was Guilt Complex: Why Leaving a Book Half-Read Is So Hard, by Heidi Mitchell, in the Wall Street Journal, June 5, 2013; the other was […]
Continue readingSticking to Goals as a Writer (and Not)
I had a boss once who always knew what percent of the year had already passed – it was roughly 2% per week, a little more than 8% each month. He would cite the percentage down to a fraction. I’ve come to adopt that attitude, as I watch time and […]
Continue readingA Novel Blog Hop: Lead Me Home
J.G. Burdette, who blogs at Map of Time: A Trip into the Past, tagged me to participate in a Blog Hop for authors. What’s a blog hop? This one is an interview with ten questions posed to a writer about the novel he or she is writing. The author answers […]
Continue readingWeaving Threads of History into Story
In February 1847, while the Donner party struggled to survive in the snows of the Sierra Nevada mountains, and Elizabeth Dixon Smith and her family prepared to leave Indiana for Oregon, a baby was born in Denmark – my paternal great-great-grandfather Charles N. Claudson. (I’m told his last name in […]
Continue readingA Writer’s Journey, and the Value of Critique Groups
In my gratitude list, I mentioned the support of colleagues and mentors as something I am grateful for. When I decided to spend my time writing, finding fellow writers was a year-long journey. For the first several months, I just wrote. And read books about writing. I learned a lot […]
Continue readingHaunting Book: Turn of Mind, by Alice LaPlante
The last book in my October series of haunting books is Turn of Mind, by Alice LaPlante. I would not have known about this book, except that it was a Stanford Alumni Association Book Salon choice for September 2012. When I learned Turn of Mind was the September selection, I […]
Continue readingHaunting Book: Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn
I’m turning now from haunting books that deal with violence and man’s inhumanity to man on a global level (The Hunger Games trilogy, The Sandcastle Girls, and Unbroken) to a novel that haunts because of the violence and inhumanity within a family. Gone Girl, a bestselling novel by Gillian Flynn, […]
Continue readingOregon City: End of the Trail
If the emigrants on the Oregon Trail were fortunate, they reached Oregon City in the Willamette Valley sometime in October – about six months after they began their journey from what was then the United States. The dangers of their trek continued even through the last weeks, when the travelers […]
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