Recently, en route to a Virginia speaking engagement, I stopped for dinner with my daughter and son-in-law.  Relaxed and happy, excited to share our new projects with one another, I at last confessed that I was nervous about speaking the next day. My son-in-law, surprised, bluntly asked, “Why?  What are you afraid of?” My first inclination was to tell him …

This week I read Murray Pura’s The Wings of Morning, a WWI novel set in Amish country.  You’re right—that combination sounded like a conundrum to me, too.  But I realized, as I read, that the challenges facing the Amish regarding war, the bearing of arms, the essence and sacredness of life, is something we all must come to terms with …

In our house the two go hand in hand.  In fact, my husband requests “Funny Cake” for every possible celebration—Father’s Day, his birthday, and any other person’s birthday, assuming he can sway them from their own favorite and convince them of the virtues of that Pennsylvania Dutch treat. The original recipe came to me via my mother-in-law, along with a …

A new Face Book Group has launched:  Transformational Fiction Fans. Conceived by award-winning author Nikki Arana, author of the newly released The Next Target, Transformational Fiction Fans is a site for readers and writers to connect and talk books that have made or are making a strong impact on their lives—including those with hot button topics.  We share news and …

While researching wonderful varieties of flowers and  roses and herbs for Promise Me This, I revisited gardens I love—and took up their language, the language of flowers. Accordingly, in the world of tussie-mussies, I am wealthy beyond measure, for today my yard is covered in golden buttercups, the flower symbolizing riches!  My riches are rivaled only by coquetry, evidenced by …