Not all little girls want ponies. I didn’t, but I sure wanted to be a cowgirl. So when I was seven years old I asked Santa to bring me a cowgirl outfit complete with boots, hat, toy gun and holster, and bandana. I got it and was happy to supply my own horse…a broom with … Read more
Last week I talked about how much I love Christmas…the spirit, the lights, the trees, the music. It was, therefore, a bit of a letdown when I discovered I had married a Grinch. In his classic, Dr. Seuss’s character is cynical about everything to do with Christmas. He despises the Whos in Whoville for their … Read more
I love Christmas. Always have. Always will. My parents made a big deal out of it when I was little, even when money was tight. It just meant the tree was smaller and presents fewer, but we still baked and decorated sugar cookies, filled the house with traditional music, and went to church on Christmas … Read more
Authors are sometimes asked where we get ideas for our stories. Sitting in the tasting room of a winery one day, I looked around at the family pictures and noticed every one of the owner’s adult children were somehow involved in winemaking. When I wrote my first book in my Love in Wine Country series, … Read more
“I sometimes joke that my greatest shortcoming as a writer is that I had an extremely happy childhood.” The quote is from Anna Quindlen and I can sympathize. I did not grow up in a dysfunctional family. My parents were married for fifty years. I had a little sister who was close, despite a six-year … Read more