1 of 9 Novellas

Available May 1, 2017

Click Here to Order

“The Last Letter” comes with astonishing twists, beginning in the opening chapter. Emilia Davis has lost her only family to the Civil War–her father and brother at the Battle of Melvern Hill, and her fiancé at the Battle of Cold Harbor. Finding herself a nineteen year old orphan, her story opens on April 10, 1865, in Canandaigua, New York, on the day of Lee’s surrender. The following is an excerpt from page 1:

“The heavy winter sky had thrown off its gray shroud. A luminous spring day, the most brilliant Emilia had seen since before the war, beamed above her. Its lapis blue mirrored the distant lake, and the water sparkled as if competing with the brightness of the sky. All around her the world was flooded with color, yet here she was, still wearing black.”

Emilia had made a vow to write to Asa, her fiancé, until the last day of the war. Even after the notification of his death the year before, she continued this ritual. Was it a morbid thing to write letters to one’s dead fiancé? No more so than talking to the photo of a departed loved one, she tells herself. And the ritual is all that she has left to sustain her. As she walks to the post on this spring day, church bells begin to ring in wild succession throughout the town, followed by the cry, “Lee has surrendered!” And Emilia knows this will be her last letter to Asa.

But when she gets to the post office, she finds the postman blanched and tremulous, and not from the outbreak of jubilation on the other side of the window: he presents Emilia with a letter marked from “1^ST SGT ASA WILSON, XVIII CORPS, WASHINGTON CITY.” Asa? Could it be…was it possible…had there been a mistake? Was he still alive? Trembling, she accepts the letter. Opening it, she sees that it has been dated June 2, 1864–the day Asa died. This had been his last letter to her. And what it reveals changes her life forever.

This writing venture has not only been a delight, it has been revelatory: I found the diary of a Canandaigua woman, twenty-three year old Caroline Cowles Richards, who wrote about the day of Lee’s surrender, allowing me to capture the authentic outbreak of near riotous jubilation that hit her streets. I also found Isaac Goodnow’s diary, the founder of Manhattan, Kansas, and included snippets in the story. I felt like I had stepped back in time as I read the lines they  penned over 150 years ago. Now you can step back too, through the eyes of Emilia Davis in “The Last Letter,” and experience history and love in this historical romance novella.

Save

Save

Save

“Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions,”

Albert Einstein

Embark on a creative writing presentation unlike any other. This is a creative approach to teaching creative writing. Using an original fantasy map participants “travel” through a realm where each site represents a writing skill. In passing through the mines we gather our story’s raw material. Next is the ruins of Erazade where statues come to life as we learn how to create and “flesh out” our characters. On to The Gateway, Dragon’s Throat, Indus Pass . . . the process builds the skills necessary to create a novel from start to finish.

“Where there is no vision, the people perish,” Proverbs 29:18

The artistic slides, metaphorical map, storytelling-style, music, and illusions force us to use the right hemisphere of the brain where our worlds are created. The abstract concepts combined with concrete hands-on objects, writing assignments, and examples from books help us to envision each aspect of the craft and how they work seamlessly together.

The Writing Realm: the Journey of a Lifetime.

MY AUTHOR BIO BEGINS with a true confession: My first story was plagiarized.  However, the fact that I was seven years old should balance the scales a little in my favor. After all, I couldn’t even say the word, much less know what it meant! It was second grade, Mrs. Alexander’s class, and we were assigned to write a Christmas story. I borrowed the idea of reindeer kidnapping Santa from a magazine and, voila!, my writing career was born!

OUR SMITH CORONA TYPEWRITER never knew what hit it. From the day I stole it (yes, yet another theft)  from its peaceful, dark corner to my writer’s desk, it became my literary accomplice. She was blue, my favorite color, and she was electric, state-of-the-art. Make no mistake, I adore  my laptop–my husband claims it’s a love affair–but there was a cadence, an actual music, in the sound of those striking keys. As the clicking and rattling gathered momentum with my thoughts, it became the sound of my adrenaline.

UNFORTUNATELY, I’VE LOST those first stories and poems, but I remember turning Smith on and listening to her hum with excitement, just waiting for my fingers to tap out another line of prose. First loves are never forgotten, and my fingertips still miss the velvet-smooth vibrations of her keys.

MARRIAGE, MOTHERHOOD, DIVORCE; followed by remarriage, step-motherhood, and a “surprise” addition to the family, became the next chapters in my life. There are  no books written, by myself or any other author, comparable to the incredible stories my husband and five children have written on the pages of my life. Not until my youngest child entered school in 2002 did I actively pursue a professional writing career. Each morning I read to her in the school library, hugged her goodbye at the classroom, and then my feet hit the pavement as I literally ran to my car, and to what was then our HP Millennium computer.

IN  2004 I PUBLISHED my first book, a fully illustrated children’s book, THE QUEST FOR ELOSHIDII, with Granite Publishers. In 2005 CRICKET magazine accepted my short story, THE TRAVELER, and published it as a three-part story in their January, February, and March 2010 issues. My older YA paranormal romance trilogy, THE CRYING CHANDELIER, is currently being represented by Terrie Wolf of the AKA Literary Agency.

PRESENTLY, I am developing a humorous romantic intrigue, a middle grade novel, and a gluten-free cookbook.

TO MY FELLOW WRITERS, whether you partner up with Smith, Mac, or Bic, I hope you have as great a life adventure as I have had–and am having! For those of you who do not love writing (is that humanly possible?), consider this your invitation to open the pages of my books, like the spreading of wings, and come fly with me into my incredible worlds, meeting astounding and frightening people. When you close the covers you may find that you, like me, will not return the same.