Story Behind the Story: Anne Mateer
My grandmother was a born storyteller, the kind that could spin a tale and keep you enthralled from beginning to end. But her tales didn’t come from a tangle of imagination. They came from her life.
I didn’t appreciate this as much as I should have as a child or a young adult, but when Nanny passed away in January of 2000, one of her stories took hold of me and wouldn’t let go. It was the story of her mother, a young woman with four small children left at home while her husband fought The Great War. As the war drew to an end, the influenza epidemic hit, stealing life from the woman. Enter the woman’s niece. She came in and cared for my grandmother and her three brothers. When my great-grandfather returned from France, the story goes that the niece wanted to take the children home with her. My great-grandfather refused to let them go. He married the girl instead.
While I have no idea what really took place between Ruth—the woman I knew as my great-grandmother—and my great-grandfather, I always believed it to be a love story since they went on to have seven more children of their own! After nine years of intermittent research and story starts and stops, I finally plunged into a novel loosely based on their tale. The next year it became my first contracted novel. Wings of a Dream releases with Bethany House September 1, 2011.
Visit Anne’s website and blog for more information! (And it is a beautiful site worth checking out!)
Read MoreTwo Years of Blogging: My favorite posts
What got me into journalism and history at the same time? Hint – An old friend of my grandfather’s and his crazy stories.
What legendary horse inspired my first “real” novel?
What WWII author tucked me under her wing and answered all my annoying questions via Facebook and email? Two years later, she’s still my idol! 
What book changed my outlook on writing, characters and the meaning of book clubs? Hint – it’s not my typical genre. And the movie comes out March 23, 2012. (Yes, I’m counting down the days.)
Finally – what blog series did I start in 2010 that I’m still continuing to this day? Hint – it goes beyond the plot of a book and digs into the story behind the story.
My loyal readers – all two of you – how I adore you and hope that I continue to serve YOU with this blog! What are some of your favorite blog posts – from me or other blogs you follow?
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Story Behind the Story: Christine Lindsey
This story that is set in India circa 1919 is so dear to my heart. Some of my ancestors on my mother’s side were Irish officers who served in the British Cavalry during England’s rule of Colonial India—the British Raj. It’s a glittering, fascinating era that is long gone. Somehow I grew up on stories set in India. MM Kaye’s Far Pavilions and Shadow of the Moon became the most romantic stories I ever read and even after many readings still sweep me away.
To cut a long story short, I had the intense joy of going to India last January to observe a ministry that focuses on teaching the gospel to children in a camp setting. There I saw the Indian culture of song and dance gorgeously portrayed in these children. Indian children prefer to sing and dance in their camp settings which is so different from our NA children who love sports.
Thank you for stopping by, Christine! Learn more about Christine here!
Read MoreStory Behind the Story: Karen Witemeyer
Have you ever wished there was an epilogue to Jesus’ parable of the Prodigal Son? I have. So often we focus on the wonderful homecoming the lost son received, but I wanted to know what life was like for him after the fatted calf was consumed and the party was over. How did he relate to his bitter older brother or the servants and townspeople who were only too aware of his past arrogance and wild living? I decided to explore these questions in a new setting—1880s Texas.
First, I needed a prodigal. Enter my hero, Levi Grant. Raised by godly parents, he turns his back on his faith and the blacksmithing trade of his father to prove his manhood and earn easy money through the wild life of a bare-knuckle brawler. Until the day something goes terribly wrong and he ends up in Huntsville state prison serving a two-year sentence. Through the traumatic abuse he suffers in the labor camps combined with the compassion he receives from the prison chaplain, Levi repents and rededicates his life to the Lord.
Read MoreStory Behind the Story: Dorothy Love
I published 14 pre teen and YA novels at Random House, Holiday House, and Simon and Schuster, but a novel for adult readers, the story of Ada Wentworth, a young Bostonian hatmaker transplanted to southern Appalachia, kept swirling in my head. I first envisioned the story as The Sunday Hat Society, centering on the friendship of a group of women in the country church in Hickory Ridge, but the more I delved into it, the more I realized it was really about Ada’s struggle to forgive the two men in her life who had wronged her, and trust God with her future and her heart.Find out more about Dorothy and her books here! Thank you for stopping by, Dorothy!
Read MoreStory Behind the Story: Michelle Griep
There’s an old family story my mom told me about my gramma, Clara Brekke. Sometime back in the early 1900’s, Clara’s father took her two-year-old sister and walked out the front door. Just like that. No bags packed. Not a word about where they were going or when they’d return. Nothing. No one ever heard from them again.
As a result, I’ve always been curious about missing people. Assuming they’ve not suffered with violence or are choosing to remain incognito, where exactly do they go?
And that’s the premise for my next book UNDERCURRENT, coming out May 1st by Risen books. Here’s a blurb:
People go missing every day. Many meet with foul play, some leave the social grid by choice, but others are never accounted for. Such is the fate of successful linguistics professor Cassie Larson. She leads a life her undergrad students hope to attain, until she tumbles into the North Sea and is sucked into a swirling vortex…and a different century.
Alarik, son of a Viking chieftain, is blamed for a murder he didn’t commit—or did he? He can’t remember. On the run, saving a half-drowned foreign woman wasn’t in his plans.
Ragnar is a converted pagan shunned by many but determined to prove his Cousin Alarik’s innocence. He didn’t count on falling in love with Cassie or the deadly presence of evil that threatens his village in Alarik’s absence.
I’m not saying my gramma’s sister is back in time with some pillaging Vikings, but hey…where did she go?
Thank you for stopping by Michelle! And congrats on your book release! Learn more here.
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