Let’s Just Read

Not long ago, I wrote about belonging to a book club for the first time ever. I love my book club in general, for many reasons, but specifically at this moment because of the book Luann chose for March. I … Read More

While in Nashville recently for QuiltCon, I took a break from the convention center to visit Parnassus Books, the classy independent bookstore established in 2011 by one of my favorite authors, Ann Patchett. My sidekick on the pilgrimage was my … 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

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

During my years as a business co-owner and continent-crossing teacher of quilting, consuming fiction was a luxury only intermittently enjoyed. I probably managed only a dozen or so novels a year, reading them during air travel before Internet access on … Read More

I was a fan of Rebecca Makkai even before I picked up her new novel THE GREAT BELIEVERS. Makkai was a featured author at the 2016 Washington Island Literary Festival and taught a workshop in the boathouse on our property. … Read More

As I become comfortable in what I consider my third career (quilting industry business owner first, nonprofit advocate second, and now, novelist), I think often of my early love of narrative, the joy I remember from childhood at the very … Read More

Like any self-respecting holder of an MA in literature, I lean toward the highbrow in my reading. This unwavering lifelong quest to improve my mind and comprehend the human condition has driven me through the pages of a number of … Read More