I think it was in 1990, that I stood in my great aunt’s farm kitchen in Gardnerville, Nevada. Ellen Gansberg loved to cook and she was an avid reader. I’d been writing for publication for a couple of years, and I’d sold several devotionals and short articles to various publications. Of course, Aunt Ellen was excited for me. Even seemed proud to know there was a real writer in the Gansberg family.
But there was that one point in the conversation, that she turned to me, wiped her hands on her apron, and got down to business. “Have you written for Guideposts?”
That’s when I noticed the Guideposts Magazine stack at the end of the counter top.
Gulp.
It’s not that I hadn’t tried to sell a story or two to Guideposts Magazine. I’d submitted a couple of pieces to the editor at a recent writer’s conference.
“No, not yet.” Not yet. How’s that for positive thinking?
All these years later, Aunt Ellen is 98, and I have a Christmas story in a collection published by Guideposts Books. Yes, I’m putting a copy of A Cup of Christmas Cheer, Volume 3, Heartwarming Tales of Christmas Past in the mail to her.
Excerpt from Guideposts Books Website
A Cup of Christmas Cheer is a collection of original fiction written just for Guideposts readers to make your Christmas merry and bright. Take a short break from your holiday planning and escape into an uplifting adventure. Everything you love in heartwarming Christmas fiction is in A Cup of Christmas Cheer — faith-based plots, captivating writing, lovable characters and hopeful endings that warm you from head to toe. You’ll love the way these stories whisk you away and how each has a heartwarming Christmas message of redemption, forgiveness, hope, and faith.”
My Story: THE FAMILY QUILT
If you’ve read my Colorado series, The Sinclair Sisters of Cripple Creek, you might be happy to know that we’re returning the late 1890s and to Cripple Creek in my long short story or short novella in The Family Quilt.
Cripple Creek, Colorado, the setting for The Family Quilt, a Christmas novella
An adult daughter is making a scrap quilt for Christmas to cheer her
newly widowed mother and soon finds that the painful remnants
in her own heart are being stitched together in love.
Join Patsy Michaels for a cup of tea in the parlor at Miss Hattie’s Boardinghouse. She’s an 1890s stuck-in-the-middle mom to three children, two of them teenage girls, and daughter to a recently widowed and uprooted mother. Good chance Patsy’s not the only one who has found herself in difficult circumstances in the Christmas season. I know I’ve been there. Perhaps you have, too. Join me in the pages of The Family Quilt to see how God answers Patsy’s prayers, even the ones she didn’t realize had passed from her heart to His.
Check out The Family Quilt board on Pinterest!
The Family Quilt is one of eight historical fiction stories included in A Cup of Christmas Cheer, Heartwarming Tales of Christmas Past. Other authors in the collection, include: Keli Gwyn, Liz Johnson, Jacqueline Wheelock, Susan Page Davis, Debbie Lynne Costello, Kae Noyce Tienstra, Pam Hanson & Barbara Andrews.
Is there a family quilt in your past, present, or future?
Click Here to Buy Your Copy Now!
GIVEAWAY
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The Family Quilt Giveaway!
Congratulations to Kathleen Belongia who won the Christmas mug filled with goodies and a signed copy of A Cup of Christmas Cheer Volume 3, Heartwarming Tales of Christmas Past.
Is there a family quilt in your past, present, or future?
Heartwarming Tales of Christmas Past and Present in Volumes 3 & 4
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