QUILTER | TEACHER | AUTHOR | FOUNDER
I’m not sure how many times I traveled away from Winterset to teach or lecture about quilting over the years, but from 1993 to 2004 I kept a file titled Old Jobs. Scrolling through the document just now, I count … Read More
“A girl can dream, Eric,” responds protagonist Grace Zacharias during a mostly-whispered scene in a public library in my novel, My Life with Shelley. Grace’s colleague, fellow high school English teacher Eric Hagermeyer, has asked Grace if she thinks the … Read More
At a holiday party in December, a new Winterset friend invited me to join her book club. In all my years of avid fiction and nonfiction consumption, I’ve never belonged to a formal circle of readers. Just being asked made … Read More
Back in October, national quilting celebrities Alex Anderson and Ricky Tims spent three days in Winterset. They’re hosts of the online program “The Quilt Show,” which they created and which has thousands of subscribers. The ten-person videography team spent Day … Read More
On Christmas Day, after breakfast and gifts, my daughter Rebecca plucked Roald Dahl’s Matilda from the bookshelf and offered to read it to us. On the sofa, Mary was tying a quilt, Hannah lounging. Jack was tidying up the kitchen, and Mark and … Read More
At age twenty-five, holding my newborn infant in my arms, I discovered a remarkable truth, almost as if Hannah were speaking to me. The more you give, the more you get back. I had given myself in marriage and in … Read More
Podcasts (new-fangled radio shows) are hugely popular these days. Quilters love them! We access episodes on our computers or smart phones when we’re sewing, binging-listening to stories of true crime, scientific discovery, or mysterious phenomena. A podcast series specifically for … Read More
The Friday evening after Thanksgiving, families who’ve been working on leftover turkey and pie all day gather downtown for Winterset’s Festival of Lights. They drink hot cocoa, warm their hands at sidewalk burn barrels, and stroll around the square admiring … Read More
Independent filmmaker Jack C. Newell* (who happens to be my son-in-law) rolled into town late Monday night, en route Chicago from Boulder, CO, where he recently wrapped filming on his latest project, a dark romantic comedy titled “Monuments.” The story … Read More
Because 2018 marks the 200th anniversary of the publication of Frankenstein,* articles about Mary Shelley and her famous novel are popping up everywhere. Having spent years studying Shelley, almost five writing my novel about her, I read them warily. You could … Read More