It’s been a while since I’ve posted here. Not because there isn’t much to tell, but because it’s been challenging to manage the many “plates” I’m currently juggling. Let’s see, there is my son, his wife and two children who moved in with us in May. Just this change alone requires a lot of my time as I am helping him get used to German burocracy. We also organised a wedding celebration for him and his wife, another rather large project. Not to forget the novella – 5 Months: The Wait – and novel – Coal Dreams – I wrote and published this year, teaching a writing class once a month. There’s also beekeeping I started last year, which classifies me still as a very new beekeeper. And there is the garden, a little bit of social life, my husband and…and
Workshop with The History Quill
On January 8, 2026, I’ll be teaching an online workshop on Writing Emotional Fiction. I’m very excited to share what I’ve learned over many years. I’ve worked with The History Quill, a British writing organization – you guessed it, specializing in historical fiction – when I had them edit a couple of my books.
A New Novel is in the Works
I’m hard at work at a new manuscript, here is the first description hot off the press:
Eastern Prussia, 1945: As the Red Army advances, Ellie Johansen flees her family’s small farm with her three-year-old daughter, Lenchen, and her mother. But when a wrong turn brings Russian soldiers to their path, Ellie is separated from her child. Alone and desperate, she begins a harrowing journey west—haunted by the hope and need of finding her daughter again.
Münster, Germany, 1993: When Lena von Schweig’s mother dies, a shattering truth emerges: Lena was adopted. With no birthdate, no family name, and only a single clue—that she once came from Eastern Prussia—her carefully built identity unravels. No longer the daughter of privilege, she embarks on a painful, seemingly impossible search for her roots.
Spanning two generations and nearly half a century, Home of Ice and Ashes is a poignant story of war, loss, and the unbreakable bond between mothers and daughters—even across time and silence.
I have ordered the cover and am very excited to see it finished in December/January.