As 2024 draws to a close, I realize how grateful I am for you, dear readers, doing what I love doing anyway. Life is at times challenging as we prepare for another surgery for my dear husband, but I have vowed to recognize those things that give me joy. It’s been a year of ups and downs, one of my best years in the business, but I really love hearing from so many of you happy readers who take time to write to me, even send pictures.
I’d like to wish you a peaceful holiday season, a healthy and joyful New Year. Take a moment every day to focus on just one good thing in your life. This thing can be small like a cup of tea or a delicious pastry, or it can be large, like appreciating the fifty-plus year friendship with your old classmate.
Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.
Looking Ahead
The new year will be a busy one again. Not only am I writing another novella about a special time in my father’s life, a third story to complete the two YA stories 47 Days and 24 Hours. This book should be available in early March 2025. Just to share, 47 Days is based on my father’s memories at the end of WWII, when he was drafted and decided to hide instead. 47 Days has been a wildly successful little book, because it is particularly well suited for young teen boys and reluctant readers. Because it is biographical, it also carries a lot of weight.
I’m also planning to write Book II of the 19th century emigration adventure, The Life We Remember, and another WWII novel about the plight of a forced laborer, being sent into the coal mines.
A New Member in Our Family
Finally, I’d like to introduce our new family member, the third musketeer, Archibald (Archie) vom kleinen Wassermann. After we lost our beloved Zelda this summer – she was eight, when we adopted her – we decided it was time for a puppy again. Archie is a Kromfohrländer, yes, that’s a breed, look it up, from a particular program that is dedicated to producing genetically healthy offspring. Archie’s father is a Danski, a Danish farm dog, and I think, Archie has inherited some of his father’s traits, like the longer, curlier hair. While we still mourn Zelda, we are happy to have Archie in our lives.