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The Midewin National Tall Grass Prairie in Will County IL has thirty miles of trails and thousands of acres to explore. Yesterday, we started at the Iron Bridge trailhead to bike and explore a small portion of the rolling hills.  We stumbled across a statue honoring the civilian workers who died while making munitions for WWII. The quiet prairie has an interesting history.  After Germany…

A few years ago I watched a barrelmaker at his craft. He was young and had big dreams. I love when people work to keep old traditions alive. I was very impressed with the cooper’s old-world skill but wondered how one could make a living with it. Turns out they don’t. On a whim a few days ago, I went in search of his studio/farm to see if he’d been able to get his barrel-making business going.…

These nasty looking things are black walnuts. (From experience, I can tell you a patch of them fallen on the bike path can be treacherous!)  Black walnut trees (Juglans nigra) are native to the Midwest. Squirrels love the nuts and have the teeth to get them open. As a closet forager, I tried to crack a few open with a hammer and by crushing them under my heel. I ended up with my fingers stained…

While writing my first six books, I avoided research and wrote only what I knew with the facts I could easily look up. Now I find diving into history is exciting and gives me a better sense of the people and places about which I write. Now I’m a believer. Researching for historical fiction is well worth the effort. For my current novel, The Peasant’s Daughter, the research should take place in…

The Home for Unwanted Girls My search for historical fiction set in Quebec led me to this book by Joanna Goodman. The novel I’m writing is set in a convent in France two hundred years earlier, but I thought this book would give me a feel for what life might be like for an orphan in a convent school. It did not—at least, I hope not. Joanna Goodman’s book is an eye-opener. According to the…

I sold out of The Neighbor’s Wife at the Legends CC craft fair. Successful day. And it was my first time using Square to accept credit cards. Game changer. I would have lost sales if I insisted on cash. What method do you use to accept payment? What’s the easiest and most reliable for you? I also offered Venmo and Paypal, but everyone chose to use their credit card with Square.

We attended a performance of The Play that Goes Wrong at the Florida Rep in downtown Fort Myers last night. I love the old intimate theater, and the goofy play gave us plenty of laughs. Slapstick comedy has kept audiences laughing for a thousand years, and it got me to wondering…did French peasants in the 17-century attend performances?  Yes, but the stage, the actors’ lives, and their payment…

We went with friends to see Trombone Shorty in concert in Naples. He plays New Orleans-style jazz and blues and  put on a foot-tappin’ good show. It was an unexpectedly fun evening.  I especially liked his trombone and the two guitarists’ solos.  That got me to thinking about music in the 17th century…How would French peasants in my historical fiction novel make music? According to my research,…

Valentine’s Day has become Valentine’s week and has me thinking. Should I include a romantic interest in the historical novel I’m currently writing? My little French peasant, Marie, is only twelve, but she could find puppy love with the young goat herder who came to her rescue.  Romance creeps in on all my books. The novels start out as mysteries involving a crime and danger, but the main…

Today, we visited the Shangri La Springs Hotel in Bonita Springs. FL which was built in 1926 to take advantage of the natural mineral spring waters. It is now also a wedding venue, an up-scale spa, farm to table restaurant, and boutique in a beautiful old building surrounded by eight acres of gardens, fountains, and statuary.  But the spring’s history goes way back before 1926. For centuries,…

We can’t live without our phones, email, TV, and podcasts. How did the people of yore manage? In a 17th-century French village, news traveled at the pace of footsteps and farm carts, stitched together by habit, ritual, and the human love of a good story. Most peasants lived within a few kilometers of one another and relied on a handful of communal spaces to exchange information—none more central…

Some would say my time is better spent writing, but I’ve had a heck of a good time designing my book covers,  business cards, posters for book fairs, book signings, art shows, and other book selling opportunities. That’s creative, too, right? I’ve used  PicMonkey.com, for years to edit my digital photographs or use their stock photos for my marketing materials. You can try it for free. At first,…

What’s in a name? Apparently, quite a lot, especially when writing a story based in historical fact, in a certain era, or in a specific place. For example, in 17th-century France, no one was named Cyndi.  To get it right, I located old parish records and made a list of first and last names common to the peasantry in north-central France. I also created a spread sheet of names I’ve used to…