WHY WASHINGTON TERRITORY?

            Today is the release date for The Mail-Order Brides Collection!

            My latest novella, titled "Miss-Delivered Mail," is included in this collection. Here's a little background:

            Some of you may know that I've often used my family's history as a source of inspiration in writing my novels. The Edge of Light uses many instances from the life of one of my great-great aunts. In The Promise of Morning I went to my great-great grandparents' lives for the storyline. The rest of my novels all contain tiny bits of family lore as well.

            The takeaway here for new writers goes beyond "write what you know" to "write what you can find out." What I know isn't always a whole lot, but with an inquiring mind and a willingness to dig a little, I've learned that there is a world of story material out there, waiting to be pressed into a manuscript.

            Moving forward to my most recent publication, here’s a bit of background for "Miss-Delivered Mail."

            As far as I know there are no mail-order brides in my family history, so that part is fiction. But in "Miss-Delivered Mail," the main character finds herself in Washington Territory in the 1880's, where she meets the Halliday family. I hope you'll read the story--the "Hallidays" in this novella are my great-grandparents. They are not the main characters, but they play an important supporting role. In real life, they homesteaded in eastern Washington in the 1880's, and many of the descriptions of their lives and surroundings come straight from my grandfather's memoirs. They settled there in the Coulee breaks long before the Grand Coulee Dam was ever imagined. My husband and I visited the area in 1997, and located the site of my family's original homestead. I brought home a rock from the farmland as a memorial. Now they are further memorialized in "Miss-Delivered Mail."

            Now that you’re armed with insider information, I wish you happy reading!