1–What is the title of your latest release? BY EVENING’S LIGHT 2–What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book? The youngest of three sisters must decide if she will embrace her family’s legacy or break free to forge a life of her own. 3–How did you decide where your book was going to take place? By Evening’s Light is a dual-time story and takes place, mainly, in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania in 2019 and in Germany in 1948 and 1949. I decided on the two time periods because I wanted to contrast a young woman living in a contemporary Amish/Anabaptist community with a young woman living in the same community with ties to Germany in the late 1940s. 4–Would you hang out with your protagonist in real life? Definitely! My protagonist turns twenty-one in the story – I used to teach at a local university and find college-aged people absolutely inspiring! 5–What are three words that describe your protagonist? Kind, feisty, and determined. 6–What’s something you learned while writing this book? I learned a whole lot about Germany during the Cold War! I have a bachelor’s degree in history, but realized I hadn’t really studied the Cold War. I ended up…

“We will always live in Paris,” Rick says to Ilsa at the end of Casablanca. We may not have each other, he is saying, but we will always have our memories.   So many memories in real life—not just in the movies—are bittersweet. The good and the bad, the gains and the losses, the tragedies and the recoveries are all woven together. Sometimes preserving them can be daunting. What do we treasure? What do we discard? Years ago, as a museum curator for the Southern Oregon Historical Society, I conducted oral histories, researched pioneer families extensively, and planned and orchestrated exhibits about those families. Most recently, in this phase of my twenty-year novel-writing career, I’ve been researching and writing dual-time novels (sometimes called time-slips) centered around family memories and generational stories. Through both experiences, I’ve learned a few things about family stories. First, family stories can shape subsequent generations. We do learn from the past. That said, I’m unabashedly grateful to be writing fiction, even after curating historical exhibits and being fascinated by generational history. “Facts” and “memories” can be inaccurate—ask any three “eyewitnesses” of the same event, or even three people who grew up in the same family. In…