Join us for a visit with some of our favorite authors whose books we love to read and share with everyone. You'll get to hear from authors who've become friends over the years, authors we're just discovering, and lots of prizes and books to win!
Something Perfect (the last book of the Hometown Weddings and the second last book of the series) started with the question What if...? and then proceeded with a daughter asking, Who am I? Where am I from? What is family?
You've seen me ask and answer those particular questions over and over again in my books. Each character and each story has a slightly different answer. But all those answers are rooted in the same place...Love. That's what makes a family.
For me, that question of where I'm from—who I'm from—is foundational. I didn't meet my bio-father until I was in my thirties. Knowing he was out there but not knowing anything about him left me with so many questions. And as a writer, questions are part of my job description. I had a burning need to find the answers. When I first met him, he tried to answer as many questions as he could. (I come from generations of Appalachian stock with a titled Englishman, a Scottish laird and some Quakers.) He was nice but he wasn't family. As time went on and I grew to know and love him and one day he was. Just like that. Like magic. He was family. Love...that makes family more than DNA.
The Hometown Hearts Wedding trilogy (Something Borrowed, Something Blue and Something Perfect) is all about how a family is made. Three women become friends and grow into family. Each of them finds their own true love...and their own true family!
There's a short story, Something Unexpected, this summer, then the final book, A Hometown Christmas in September.
Thanks all of you who've taken these journeys with me!
I've built a life and my writing career around family.
This Hometown Hearts Wedding trilogy deals with families. Friends who become families. Families who are made through adoption. Families who are born...Family. Watching people come together, fall apart, adapt... It's a fascinating process. Every story comes at it from a new direction.
We've talked before about how my real life impacts my writing. In March's book, Something Blue, I deal with dementia in an older loved one. It's a reality I know about. My grandmother slowly lost her battle with dementia over years. Then we adopted a neighbor who also battled that kind of loss. It's an awful process. And you might be thinking, Holly, that's too grim to read about. But that's not all there is. My grandmother always knew me and my kids. We visited every day. Even after she couldn't remember our names, she knew she was ours and we were hers. The connection was still there. She knew she was loved and she wasn't alone.
We saw the same thing with our neighbor. The Minions owned her entire nursing home. We walked over regularly. The two littles would dress up in their superhero capes and ride their scooters (you can't ride a bike in a cape). Not only did she know we were hers and she was ours, the entire nursing home knew the Minions. They high-fived their way through the halls. Some days they were Batman and Robin, sometimes they were Superman and the Green Lantern... What I loved the most is how gentle they were with everyone. They didn't worry if our neighbor didn't know their names. They filled her in on their day and chatted away and she loved it.
We missed those visits last year.
Someone once questioned why we visited if a patient didn't know us. I think that even when memories have gone, when someone is lost in their own mind, they recognize love. They feel it. It's a bright light in a dark place. So we visited. My kids and the Minions learned lessons on patience, empathy and love. And our loved ones learned no matter what they were never alone.
Those are the things I tried to put in Something Blue. Connection. Empathy. Love. I know I write romances and writing about love is obviously a part of that, but I really try to write about broader loves. About family. About all the ways they come together and all the ways they stand together.
I've built a life around family and I've built a career around it.
I am so lucky in both! And Valentine's Day seems like the perfect day to talk about that kind of love.
I hope you'll check out the entire Hometown Hearts series and Something Blue!
I tend to join Ancestry every few years to update my family tree. They're always adding new resources, so there's generally something new to find. One great-grandmother was a complete mystery when I started my family tree. My grandmother was adopted. A family friend told me her adopted father was in actuality her biological father. I found her original birth certificate and the father listed was a variation of his name so I thought that clicked. And there was a mother's name listed.
Before DNA testing was available, I was pretty sure I tracked down my grandmother's mother. And I listed her adopted father as her bio father on my tree, though I didn't have proof. Since then, DNA has shown that her dad was her biological father, and my guess at her mom was correct as well.
Here's the thing, I like knowing who I came from, but I also know who my family truly is. I look at those names on my family tree and can trace my roots to Ireland, England and Germany. I can follow my northern family lines from a Brown University founder to Erie, PA. I can trace my southern family line from the Appalachian Mountains, to Erie. I know I've had politicians, doctors, sea captains, train engineers, homesteaders and share croppers in that tree.
All that is great and truly fascinating but my family? My real family? Well, there's John. Papa John to me. He wasn't related through DNA, but he was my Papa through and through. He gardened. Every Christmas he brought me a poinsettia and every Easter a hyacinth. (Himself occasionally tries to buy me an Easter flower to remind me of Papa...and he invariably buys a lily. But that always makes me smile and think of Papa anyway! LOL) Then there's Elmer. He wasn't a blood relation either, but he was my grandpa. He lived on a farm in western Erie county. He mowed a golf course in the summers and had permanently sun burned arms. His mom was named Maggie Mae and I have the vaguest memory of her in a rocker. Both of these "grandfathers" were my real family.
Family isn't DNA. I mean, I love knowing these people and their paths that all converged and led me here, but Papa and Elmer...they were family.
I think my fragmented family tree is why writing stories about how families come together is such a theme for me. That's what the entire Hometown Hearts series is. In Crib Notes there's an unexpected pregnancy and a baby who finds a true father. In A Special Kind of Different there's a special needs character who brings together a special relationship and creates a family. In Homecoming a loss leads to the discovery that hearts have infinite room...loving someone new doesn't take away from others you've loved. And in this month's Suddenly a Father, Tucker was a teen mom who spent her adult years taking care of her son and her career. She's never needed anything—anyone—else. But she meets a man who truly knows what family is and is willing to put his entire life on the line for them. How can she resist him? (She can't. LOL)
Next year's stories continue that exploration of family in Something Borrowed, Something Blue, Something Perfect and Something for Christmas.
Family. It's a fascinating subject that I will never get tired of exploring in my life and my writing.
Thank you everyone who's come along for the ride! I hope you'll pick up this month's release, Suddenly a Father and the first three books as well!
I've been making trees of life, first in bowls and now with these tiles. I'll confess, when I find a new ceramic project or idea I tend to do a bunch of them. I like to figure out how I want to make them and what works best. But I think what I like about making the trees right now is they really speak to today's environment. The world is so divisive right now. And the trees sort of remind me that we're all connected. We all have our roots in this country and we branch out and add our own uniqueness to it. Those differences make for a much richer tapestry.
It's sort of the same thing that attracts me to writing...the uniqueness of each story and each character. Each story allows me to explore something new.
They say that most people live one life, but a reader lives a thousand lives. That applies to writers as well. Each book I read and write allows me to inhabit someone else's life for a while. In Hometown Hearts each character goes through something different and approaches the idea of family in a different way. And yet, like my trees of life, they all have their roots firmly planted in a universal sameness...in family, friendship and love.
I'm finding that my art connects to my writing which connects to my life. Yes it's all intertwined...just like we're all intertwined. Sometimes we spend so long looking at our differences that we forget our connection. I think readers and writers are better at recognizing that our differences are a gift...that we're all rooted in the same soil.
If you haven't read the first three books in my Hometown Hearts series, I hope you pick them up so that you're ready for the fourth book which comes out in September!
I'm heading out to the studio today...so much clay to play with, so little time!
Holly
PS This is Herman. He's the first piece I made in my new HollysWood Studio. That's one of the ash glazes I've made!
My daughter said that she was loving Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist. So, I tried it out (it's on NBC and Hulu) and...I love it. I mean I really love it. I just watched Episode 9. Not just loved it, I wish I wrote it. Sigh.
When I started writing, I wrote romantic comedy. And even at my most zany, I tried to find the heart of the story. People living in my comedies never found their situations funny. Whether they're worrying about going to jail and getting a tattoo (where do you put your prison tattoo that won't wrinkle?) or worrying whether a kiss is a kiss or just mouth-to-mouth, the obstacle was real to them. LOL
On the surface, a girl who can hear people singing their heart-truth (her term) sounds silly. But there're so many deeper undercurrents to Zoey's EP. Today's episode dealt with a hearing-impaired character who was struggling to proclaim her independence.
It really hit me.
And I for a moment I wondered why it hit me so hard. I mulled it over and I realized I wrote that character in A Special Kind of Different's Colm. I've built a career around characters who have a challenge and overcome it. Sometimes a special need, but mainly just life. Originally I helped them meet that challenge through comedy. I've taught a lot of classes on writing comedy and the point I always come back to is comedy and drama are two sides of the same coin. The same situation can be written either way. When I moved on from writing straight up comedy, that relationship between comedy and drama became a balance in my writing. I love when someone tells me a book made them laugh...and cry. (That sounds so mean. LOL)
Writing characters who overcome fascinates me. I think that the gift writing has given me is realizing we all come with challenges. Sometimes those challenges are visible and easy to see, but everyone has something. Fictional and real people. (To be honest, they're all real to me.) And watching them work so hard to overcome their obstacles...that's what keeps me coming back to writing, day after day, year after year.
Check out Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist, and check out my Hometown Heart series. Hopefully both will make you laugh...and maybe cry a bit (no meanness intended LOL).
The rest of the Hometown Hearts series will be coming soon. Suddenly a Father will be out in September of 2020 and Something Borrowed, Something Blue and Something Perfect in 2021!
PS and if you're looking for a short read, check out my dog Tallulah's pandemic romance, Quarantine! Okay, so the dog isn't the main character, but please don't tell her that. She thinks she's the star!
Like so much of the country, Pennsylvania has a stay-at-home order. Right before the state went on lockdown, we got a new puppy. Tallulah Mae. I'll confess, she's been keeping us busy. As a writer, staying at home is my normal. This week, I've been writing another short story, Quarantine, this week in between house-training a puppy, homeschooling the minions and working on the barn.
I've also been trying to post upbeat messages of hope and glee on my social media accounts! In the midst of this crisis good things still happen. Kids laugh, puppies chase balls, and people love. People fall in love. That's the story I wanted to tell in this short story. I didn't want to minimize the tragedy of what's going on, but rather I wanted to remind myself and anyone who reads it that in the midst of awfulness, good things happen. I hope this short story does that.
As always, there are elements of real life in my fiction. Of course this one has a puppy in it. Tallulah Mae to be exact. And it's a story of heroes. A nurse and a grocer. I think this crisis has reminded us all that heroes are everywhere.
I still love writing short stories. Those were my first writing sales and they're still such a joy to write. I hope you check out Quarantine and I'm including the list of the other shorts I have up and available. And don't forget the first two books in my Hometown Hearts series are out, and the third is up for preorder!
I hope you all are staying safe and staying at home. I hope despite everything that's going on, you're still finding moments of glee in your days.
If, like me, you're home with kids, I've got some tips on what we're doing here with 4-8 year olds. Tip 1 & Tip 2.
I have an avant-garde past...it influences a lot of what I write.
I worked with breastfeeding moms for years. My first speaking gigs were talking about breastfeeding to medical people and colleges. My most memorable talk was a university psych class at 8am on a Monday morning. I doubted the kids would be really excited about asking questions (I so prefer doing talks with audience participation) so I asked them to write their questions/comments on index cards (Hey Susan, I used index cards!). One of their first questions I read was, "Does the size of the breast matter?" I should mention I talk with my hands. So I did a little palm-up hand motion, as if weighing breasts without thinking about what I was doing. I should also mention that the front row consisted of huge, football-looking guys. As I realized what I'd done, I started to laugh and the football team cracked up. Pretty soon the entire class was laughing with us. The rest of the talk went very smoothly. LOL I added a breastfeeding baby to Bosom Buddies. It was one of my earliest sales and started with an absurd breastfeeding situation. I really thought I'd gone over the top and considered cutting it, but in the end I left it in. I'm glad I did because the editor called after reading it and said, "I just died laughing. I'm buying the book, but let me finish reading it before we talk." If I wrote the book today, I'd have written it differently, but I still love this early example of my work. I love that early works are still out there for readers to find, but I hope they all go on to read more current books. My writing has grown. And truly, if it hasn't, I should find another job.
Speaking of jobs, I volunteered at my kids' grade school for years. I was on the school board (school board president one year), worked with PTA and for a number of years I planned and ran the kids' games at our annual Feather Party. Those experiences influenced my PTA Mom Trilogy. I really loved getting to focus on the balancing act all parents have to do. There's a bonus story in the bundle because truly, I loved those years on PTA and I loved giving PTA moms a shout-out in the stories! It was fun to go back to Erie Elementary.
Speaking of Erie schools, for years I worked with the Erie School District's teen parenting program. Once a year I went in to talk to the kids in the program. There were three of us who were core speakers, with others joining us on occasion. Deb talked about programs available to the girls. Craig talked with a male perspective. I talked about parenting. The teachers who worked in the program at the different district high schools were amazing. This volunteer gig is definitely part of the first book in my Hometown Hearts series, Crib Notes. The book is about a teacher who runs...a teen parenting program, of course. She finds herself pregnant and dumped. So while she is an adult, her journey echoes the journeys of the girls she's worked with for years. And it turns out no matter how old or young you are, there are a lot of similarities in being unexpectedly pregnant and on your own. A lot.
The second book in the Hometown Hearts series, A Special Kind of Different (out in March and available for preorder) has a very special character. Here's my Dear Reader letter that tells how a neighbor inspired that :
Dear Reader, My family had a very special neighbor, Tiffany. My kids and their friends accepted her without question. She didn't verbalize much, but she always had a smile and an utter fascination with watches. One day my kids and their friends came running to the house to get me because a group of strangers were picking on Tiff. We went outside and with a few mom-threats on my part, they left. In that moment, the kids showed not just compassion, but they showed that they knew that different isn't something to be afraid of or mocked...it's special. I was so very proud of all of them! In this second book in my Hometown Hearts series. I introduce the Sunrise Foundation, whose goal is to help exceptional people lead exceptional lives. Instead of locating the story in Erie, I used the fictional neighboring town of Whedon—the setting forCrib Notes—because Erie already has an organization that helps our special residents,The Gertrude A. Barber National Institute.They do such wonderful work. In this story, Anna and Liam both believe that they know what's best for Liam's brother, Colm. In the end it's Colm who teaches them an important life lesson--that you need to stand up for what you want and love!
A Special Kind of Different is a book that's...well, special for me as the writer, and hopefully for you as the reader!
One last story...
My biological father left when I was a toddler. I never met him until I was in my thirties. That idea of a parent giving up a child came up in Carry Her Heart. I wrote the story from the mother-who-gave-up-the-baby's perspective. And then followed up with the story of that daughter finding her biological mother in Hold Her Heart. No, not my story really, but stories that echo my stories. (They're on sale this week on Amazon.)
I could go on. There's some element of me, my life, my questions about life in each of my books. None of my experiences are really autobiographical in my fiction. They're a starting point. A place to build off of. I twist my facts and turn them into something totally different and unique. I build characters who do things and see things differently than I do or would. They're uniquely themselves. Real people and real stories in a very fictional way. LOL
I hope you try out any new-to-you stories!
And a special thanks so everyone who picked up Crib Notes last week! After you've read it, I would really appreciate it if you left a review at your favorite online site!
The rest of the Hometown Hearts series will be coming soon.
Homecoming and Suddenly a Father will be out in June and September of 2020 and
Something Borrowed, Something Blue and Something Perfect in 2021!
I know many things about myself.
I love my family and Himself.
I treasure my friends.
I have Medusa hair.
I do not truly wake up until I have hot, strong black coffee in my hand.
I love to read, play with ceramics, learn new things...
I feel most at home out in the middle of the woods at the cottage.
I am a busy sort of person.
I am not a patient patient...
Oh, that last one. I've been having some ongoing issues since summer with my bad leg. It has put a bit of a hitch in my giddiup this summer and fall. Well, last week, they took out my decades-old hardware and we're hoping this last surgery is the LAST surgery. Yes, my bionic leg is screw and plateless. It's a regular old leg. And I'm on crutches for a bit while those screw holes in the femur heal.
Uh, remember that not patient patient Holly fact? It's coming into play. But I'm being very well behaved even if I'm not patient. I'm resting a lot and slowly rebuilding my strength. All my wood-splitting means my arms aren't doing too bad with the crutches. So I'm moving more slowly than usual, but I'm moving.
I'm setting small goals for myself. For instance, yesterday I made the bed and made the morning coffee. Poor Himself did pretty much of the rest of my daily routine, but darn that bed looked nice and the coffee was just the way I like it, hot, strong black coffee. Today, I've already made the coffee, I'm making that darn bed, and I'm going to find one more new thing to throw in the mix. Maybe unload a dishwasher. Anyway, that's how I'm going to measure my recovery...one new (regular) thing at a time.
My ultimate goal is to be back in the studio by the end of January. I've always been someone who likes to work with goals. I try to have realistic goals. It's almost time to pick my word for 2020. And I'm not going to wait until the new year to pick it. I'm going to pick it now. Patience.
I've always found it easier to be patient with others than patient with myself. There's so much in the world I want to learn and do. So many new things to explore. That hitch in my giddiup is slowing it all up. But slow doesn't mean stopped. So I'm being patient. Or at least trying to.
Here's the thing, goals are great. They give us something to move towards. But I think we have to be kind to ourselves and be patient with ourselves. Sometimes life happens. And our goals have to change. I might not be hosting my big Christmas Eve bash this year (thanks to my marvelous sister-in-law for taking that on), but darn the bed is made. LOL And I've read 600 pages in that 1,000 page book my son has been telling me to read (Brandon Sanderson is an amazing author) and I truly binge-watched The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel's new season. Yeah, most of the time I don't have the time to binge watch. My leg has derailed my plans, but it's also given me time to do things I wouldn't normally have time to do. Every obstacle comes with gifts in its hands!
So Ella and I are going to sit on this couch under my buffalo plaid blanket and read the paper today. (Well, she doesn't do much of the reading.) Then I'm going to make that darned bed and find a way to do one more thing from my normal routine today.
And by the end of January, I'm going back to the studio. In the meantime, I'm going to look for all the gifts this particular obstacle has in its hands! And I'm going to patiently celebrate and embrace each of those gifts! And while we're talking about gifts, let me take a moment to wish you all a wonderful holiday season! Talk to you in 2020!
Holly
PS. I have two Christmas books on sale, and the first two Hometown Hearts books are available for preorder!! I hope you'll check them both out. And check our the Dear Reader Letter on A Special Kind of Different's Amazon page. Celebrating our differences gives me glee!!
