Pope Joan author, Donna Cross, is hosting a very special contest for those of you who buy a copy of her lovely novel. Pope Joan has been made into a film and Ms. Cross and her family would like one lucky winner to join them on the red carpet at the film premier in coming months. Check out the contest rules HERE and good luck! Also, in coming weeks Donna Cross will be writing a guest post for us here at Planet Books so be sure to check back for that.
I am so excited and pleased to introduce my friend, Kelly Garcia, and her new, independently released children’s book, Takako and the Great Typhoon. Kelly has lived in Okinawa, Japan with her husband for three and a half years. One year ago they welcomed their adorable baby boy into the world and with motherhood, Kelly set out on a literary adventure. The outcome is Takako and the Great Typhoon.
Kelly has joined us here at Planet Books for a Q&A session and has also donated a signed copy of Takako and the Great Typhoon for a giveaway. Due to the length of our interview, I am breaking up the Q&A into two posts. They will publish simultaneously.
First of all, Karen, since I know your passion for music I should share w/ you my play list as I sit responding to your interview questions:
Single Ladies, Freedom (George Michael), Smells Like Teen Spirit, Papa Loved Mama, Nuthin’ But a G Thang, Thank You (Dido), Praying for Time, Womanizer, Sabotage, What is Love? (Haddoway…remember that?!), Say It Loud, I Like (Montell Jordan), Say It Ain’t So (Weezer), Kenny Chesney.
Should give you an idea of what generation I’m coming from anyway. Okay, and onto the interview!
PB ~ I am so excited for you and your independent release of Takako and the Great Typhoon! Would you please tell us what the story is about?
Kelly ~ It’s the story of these two shisas (shisas being the lion-dog statues you find absolutely everywhere in Okinawa) that are brother and sister. Their names are Takako (Tah-kah-koe), the little girl shisa, and Nobu(No-boo) the little boy shisa. They live on a rooftop and it is their job as shisas is to stand guard at all times protecting their house from danger. But who the heck wants to sit on a boring ‘ole roof all the time? Not Takako. She sees all of these wonderful things going on in the village below and wants to jump in and join the fun. Nobu warns her that she would be breaking the Shisa Rule of working together and guarding the home if she left. (Boo! What a party pooper!) But Takako can’t resist temptation, follows a butterfly into the village and has a fabulous day…until, of course, something bad happens. The typhoon! That’s when the adventure really begins!
PB ~ How did this idea first develop and what made you think you could really make this happen?
Kelly ~ To be honest, I can’t remember how the genesis for the storyline originated, of the brother-sister shisas and Takako’s day in the village and the great typhoon. (Although I should mention my friend Kay gave me the idea of how to have Takako save the day in the end. Thank you Kay!) My real focus was to create a story showcasing the little moments that are representative of everyday life in Okinawa, Japan. In a way, the book is really selfish ‘cause it captures a very personal experience of Okinawa. For example, the tree on the back cover is a tree down the street from my house. The barbershop is around the corner. And the scene where Takako chases the pickup truck is the view from the back of my house.
It might sound silly, but I LOVE these little things. After I had my son, making the book a reality became more important to me because I knew that he would have no memory of any of this. We are living in Okinawa as a result of my husband’s work and our time here is limited to a few years. In fact, we are leaving this summer. I really wanted to be able to capture the feeling of love that this place has shown my son and my family, so that’s what this book is about. But, it’s an exciting adventure story too, not all mushy-mushy sentimentality, so I hope that even folks who’ve never heard of Okinawa can enjoy it!
I’m digressing from the question! –
Okay, when I began sharing the book idea with people and was met with such a sincere, enthusiastic response, I felt this project could happen. (Especially from my awesomely supportive husband!) When Carmen, the illustrator, signed onto the project I KNEW it would happen.
PB ~ For those readers out there who haven’t had the pleasure of visiting Okinawa and may not be familiar with its culture, what is a “Shisa Dog?”
Kelly ~ It’s a statue that you see pretty much everywhere here. I can’t exaggerate the popularity of this figure to Okinawa. More popular than Starbucks in an American suburb, if that’s possible! In my neighborhood you can find them at every turn: on rooftops, on gateposts, by doorways, etc. They look like a mixture of a lion and a dog and often they come in pairs. When they are paired, one has a closed mouth (keeping in the good luck) and one has an open mouth (scaring off evil.) One is a male and one is a female. www.wonderokinawa.com has excellent information about shisa lore and history. It’s actually pretty interesting stuff. Also on my website, www.shisastory.com I’ll be posting a VERY amateur walking tour video of my neighborhood with tons of examples of shisas in it if you care to have a look.
(For the rest of our interview and the chance to win a signed copy of Takako and the Great Typhoon, check out the next post on Planet Books.)
Christine you have won a signed copy of Jessica Anya Blau’s THE SUMMER OF NAKED SWIM PARTIES. I’ll come by your house tomorrow and give it to you.
Everyone else who entered and shared your story from the summer when you were fourteen, thank you very much. (I used Random.org’s List Randomizer to get the winner.) I loved reading your comments and I did tell Jessica Anya Blau about them so she could check them out too.
Congratulation girl! You have won a $25 Borders gift card. Happy Shopping! Thank you for your readership, support and friendship. Having you in my life here in Okinawa has been wonderful and I love ya!
Everyone who entered in this contest, THANK YOU for your readership at Planet Books! I love you all and appreciate you taking the time to visit me here and checking out what I have to say. I have so much fun doing this book blog and sharing my thoughts with you. I also love reading your blogs and seeing what is new with you and what is on your mind at the moment.
Happy Hump Day! So, I’ve got another signed book to giveaway and this week it is The Summer of Naked Swim Parties by Jessica Anya Blau. Many of you may remember my review and Jessica’s hilarious guest post titled Motherhood & Celebrity Penises. Well Jessica kindly sent me a signed copy of her novel for this giveaway.
To enter this giveaway contest, please leave a comment on this post including your e-mail address. In addition please tell us a funny memory from the summer when you were fourteen. It can be short and sweet or you can take this opportunity to write about a memorable moment that has been haunting you or that you love to tell and elaborate on it. I will let Jessica know about this additional requirement in order to be eligible to win her book so she can stop by and check out your comments.
I will run this contest through next Wednesday, October 1st at Midnight EDT. I can’t wait to read your stories. Remember short and sweet or type till your hearts content!
Congratulations SJ! You have won my ARC of Allison Winn Scotch’s September 30th release, TIME OF MY LIFE. I hope you enjoy it! I will e-mail you in regard to your mailing address soon.
Thank you to everyone else who entered this giveaway! I really appreciate you visiting Planet Books and entering my contests. I love discovering your blogs in this fashion and I try to check out every one.
If you have been a devoted reader of my book blog, Planet Books, thank you! If you are new to Planet Books, thank you! If you are just visiting this book blog for the first time right now, thank you! Last week Planet Books surpassed 10,000 hits in the mist of BBAW (Book Bloggers Appreciation Week) and to show my appreciation for your readership I would like to offer one lucky winner a $25 gift card to Borders Books Stores. I wish I could afford to give each of you a gift card but that isn’t realistic on my husbands salary at this point in time. (Maybe one day!)
I will run this giveaway like the rest and ask you to leave a comment on this post including your e-mail address. In order for your comment to be eligible though I would like to ask you to answer one question. What do you like so much about Planet Books that keeps you coming back? Is it the book reviews? The author guest posts? My occasional feature called “Today’s Favorite Song?” This giveaway will conclude on Friday, September 25th at Midnight EDT.
I’m just curious to know how Planet Books got to over 10,000 hits in just under a year. Planet Books’ first post on WordPress was October 1st, 2007. Thank you again for your patronage and I look forward to a bright future in the world of books and experiencing it with you.
XOXO-Karen
Summary ~ If you could live your life over again, what would you change? One woman finds out in this funny and poignant tale of what-ifs and second chances. Jillian Westfield has the perfect husband, the perfect baby, and the perfect lemon-scented house in the suburbs, and yet, still, she finds herself wondering about the life she left behind. Back then, her boyfriend, Jackson, was unreliable, her job at an ad agency was demanding, and her West Village apartment wasn’t exactly picturesque. But those days were full of possibility. Now, discontented in her faltering marriage, Jillian can’t help but think about what her life would be like if she hadn’t married Henry or quit her job to be a stay-at-home mom or spurned her mother’s attempts to reconcile after two decades of silence. What if she’d stayed with Jackson in their bohemian apartment? What if she’s answered her mother’s query? What would her life be like now?
One morning, Jillian gets a chance to find out. She wakes up in the old apartment, right in the middle of her life as it was seven years ago, before she’d made the decisions that would change everything. With twenty-twenty hindsight, Jillian has the chance to discover “what if” once and for all – and to decide which life is the one she really wants.
What would you do if you daydreamed about your old life to the point that you were given the chance to relive it for a second chance at happiness? That is what Jillian, the protagonist of Allison Winn Scotch’s upcoming release, Time of My Life, is faced with.
Sure we are always seeing the greener grass on the other side of the fence of life but we are in the life we are in because of the paths we chose that brought us here. Sometimes I wonder how I got here. Here being in a fun, loving and loyal marriage; living in Okinawa; having great friends literally all over the world and being as happy and busy as I am. But some days I wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t taken that temp job in Hubby’s building and met him, if I had stayed in Denver ten years ago and not run home to Maryland full of homesickness. If you don’t have moments of wonder and reminiscing than you just aren’t human. It is human nature to always wonder, “What if?”
Allison Winn Scotch replaces Jillian in her past seven years back. Into a relationship with the man she still wonders “what if” about when her marriage to Henry doesn’t feel shiny and perfect anymore. In her old life she is a mother of an adorable little girl, the wife of a overworked husband who she pushes away when he is home because he’s just in her way, and a desperate housewife who is always going at full speed in order to make life seem perfect and desirable from the outside looking in.
When Jillian ends up seven years in her past after a freak chi experiment administered by her gorgeous massage therapist Garland she wonders if this is her second chance at being happy. Jillian discovers that she is still in a relationship with Jack (the love that took place before her relationship with husband Henry), is still living in their New York City apartment and she is still working in her old advertising job. Well, when you know what happens things can happen a little more smoothly the second time around. Promotions happen faster because Jillian knows what “Coke” wants in their ad campaign before they do and a tumultuous relationship that ends like a car wreck on the Brooklyn Bridge is suddenly saved and enjoyed because the land mines are clearly marked by memories of what happened last time when that fight was picked.
The underlying story line in Time of My Life was the relationship, or lack there of, between Jillian and the mother that deserted her and her family when she was just a child. After discovering that this woman who haunted her in both the future and the past is just a stones throw after all this time, Jillian begins to realize what may have caused her mother to leave all those years ago. The fears that Jillian faces as a mother herself are overwhelming and terrifying at times and when she looks back and actually moves towards a relationship with her mother, she begins to understand.
But after all the fun and wondering if this is really a second chance or just a freak of nature/time space, Jillian starts to realize what she thought she wanted and regretted were not in her past but right in front of her in her “real” life.
Time of My Life was an okay read but for some reason it didn’t grasp my attention like I wished it had. I don’t know if it was the books concept or the voice of the main character, Jillian, that bored me. I wanted to enjoy this great idea of a woman who appears to time travel (still don’t know exactly what happened, if Jillian actually stepped backwards in time or was just dreaming) and gets a second chance with one of her great loves as well as the opportunity to rebuild a broken relationship with her own mother. I wonder if I was just reading it at the wrong time for me?
{Rating: 3 out of 5}
TIME OF MY LIFE will be available in stores on October 7th, 2008. Allison Winn Scotch is also the author of THE DEPARTMENT OF LOST AND FOUND. You can learn more about Allison at her website www.AllisonWinn.com. Allison also has a great blog at http://www.allisonwinnscotch.blogspot.com/.
*I received an Advanced Reading Copy of TIME OF MY LIFE from www.BookBrowse.com in return for my written review on their website. Because it’s BBAW (Book Blogger Appreciation Week I thought it would be great to do another book giveaway here. If you would like to win my Advanced Reading Copy of TIME OF MY LIFE, please leave a comment on this post by Monday, September 22nd @ Midnight EDT to be eligible.
I have had so much fun reading KEEPING THE HOUSE and corresponding with author, Ellen Baker, on our interview and receiving her guest post for Planet Books. At the end of the week we will learn whom she will be sending a signed copy of her breakthrough novel to. Ellen has been so generous and that is even more apparent when I received her awesome, revealing and thoughtful guest post this morning. I hope that you enjoy reading it and hearing what she has to say about herself and her experiences writing KEEPING THE HOUSE as much as I did. Enjoy!
KEEPING THE HOUSE evolved out of my experiences and fascinations over a period of about ten years, beginning when I was going into my junior year of college. I’d always loved stories and loved to write – in fact, by this time, I’d already written two novels. (Of course, I have to add the disclaimer that all writers add about their first works – they were awful – but I only mean to illustrate that I really loved writing and had a definite degree of stick-to-it-iveness. As it turned out, it was all good practice!) So, that summer when I was 20, I got an internship at a local historical society in a beautiful little town on the shores of Green Bay in Door County, Wisconsin, and I began to write a novel about a family called the Mickelsons who had lost a son in World War I. It was 1919, and the family came to their summer home in “Stone Harbor, Wisconsin” for the first summer after the war and tried to pretend nothing had happened.
I worked on this novel for several years, but meanwhile, the life that was unfolding for me would ultimately inspire – in bits and pieces – KEEPING THE HOUSE. For example, after college, I spent a year working at a living history farm, where I learned how to quilt by hand, and spent many hours gathered around the quilt frame with my co-workers trading stories and gossip. Dolly’s quilting experiences are loosely based on mine – though no one ever pulled out any of my too-big, beginner stitches!
Then, in March of 2000, I met Jay Baker, a soldier in the 101st Airborne, stationed at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. He was only 21 (I was a worldly 24) and told me before I left to drive back north – I was living in Door County again by this time – that he had fallen for me. “Head over heels, I think is the term,” he said, with an endearing humility and a little laugh. Three months later, we were engaged, despite the 700 miles between us. We spent hours on the phone, and counted down to our usually monthly visits. Each time we were together, the pain of separating became more extreme. “One of us is going to have to quit our job,” he said. “And if I quit mine, I go to jail!” So, in the summer of 2001, I did. I got hired back on at The Homeplace and moved down on Memorial Day, just three months before the wedding we’d already planned. Jay was scheduled to get out of the Army that December, so I planned to live with him in Kentucky for six months, doing a lot of writing (plus, I had finished the 1919 novel and was trying to get an agent for it) and getting married in the midst of it.
Well, the “getting an agent” part didn’t happen – I collected a folder full of rejections – and the writing part didn’t work out much better, because we were married on September 8, 2001, and, after 9/11, we waited for word that Jay would be sent to Afghanistan. And I learned that pinning my hopes to a soldier in a time like that was a bit like running myself back and forth through an old wringer washer, day after day after day. Though I didn’t make a conscious choice to write about this experience, both Dolly and Wilma experience the same sort of helplessness – Dolly in the unwanted move to Pine Rapids and her consequent difficulties, and Wilma when her sons go off to war.
But I had one more stop before KEEPING THE HOUSE would come to be. In 2002, just after Jay got out of the Army – it was an anticlimactic, near-miss of an ending, as he got out just about a week before his unit was sent overseas – I became the curator of a World War II museum in northern Wisconsin. Part of my job was to conduct oral history interviews with veterans, and they told me things they hadn’t spoken of in sixty years. I was honored to be the one that these men trusted with their stories, and I felt a real bond with them, or at least with the boys they’d been during the war (I often didn’t find out anything about what they’d done for the rest of their lives). I would never have been able to write about the troubled JJ Mickelson without having known these veterans – though I should clarify (due to JJ’s frequent bad behavior!) that JJ is purely a product of my imagination.
Meanwhile, I was trying hard to fulfill my role as a newly-married homeowner! In 2002, Jay and I moved into an old colonial-style house, and, much to my dismay, I suddenly began to imagine that I had to be a perfect “housewife.” I found myself more concerned with whether the dishes were washed and the grocery shopping done than with any of my other goals. Dust had never bothered me before, but now, seeing it gathered in corners seemed to me a representation of my personal failures. As a person who had always enjoyed the life inside my mind more than real life, homemaking was decidedly not my cup of tea. Yet, some women I knew were appalled by my lack of interest in cleaning, and Jay’s co-workers would comment disparagingly on the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in the lunchbox he’d packed – gasp – for himself. To his credit, Jay would scoff at those who scorned me for not cooking and cleaning for him appropriately. But, like Dolly, I tended to listen too much to what other people said, and couldn’t help but take the criticism somewhat to heart.
Ultimately, I never got an agent for the 1919 novel, and that turned out to be a good thing, because I decided to shelve it and start something new – a novel that would concern my beloved Mickelson family during WWII (so I thought – of course, as it turned out, I would write about fifty years of their lives). I also decided to give up my full-time job at the museum in favor of part-time work at a bookstore. This allowed me to really pursue writing – I attended workshops, read, studied, researched, and met other writers who would read my work and give me feedback. And, of course, I wrote and wrote and rewrote and rewrote. Three years later, I had finished KEEPING THE HOUSE, plus gotten an agent and a two-book contract with Random House. Those were probably the hardest three years of work of my life, and they were absolutely the best and most rewarding, too.
Now, I’m working on my next novel, also historical fiction – my main characters are women shipbuilders during WWII. They’re very strong women, but, like Dolly and Wilma, they’re conflicted about many things. Every day, I look forward to seeing what they’ll do next!
You can read my review of KEEPING THE HOUSE and enter the giveaway that ends this Friday night HERE and catch up with Ellen Baker in our interview HERE. Also, be sure to check out her website at http://www.ellenbakernovels.com/ as well as her MySpace page HERE. She also created a MySpace page for her main character Dolly and you can check it out HERE. Ellen has upcoming appearances through October and you can check out her schedule HERE.
Author Ellen Baker of the newly released paperback Keeping The House ever so graciously accepted my Q&A request and kindly took time out of her busy schedule to answer a dozen questions about her book and writing. Ellen is currently promoting her novel, Keeping The House with the help of a book tour. Her event schedule and more information about her and her book can be found on her website HERE. Keeping The House was listed as one of the Chicago Tribune’s “Favorite Books of 2007”, was a featured selection of the Doubleday Book Club, and was selected as an “Insider Discovery” title of the Literary Guild.
To learn more about Keeping The House and enter in the signed copy book giveaway please check out my review HERE. To refresh your memory, here is a summary of the book followed by my interview with the lovely Ellen Baker.
Summary ~ “When Dolly Magnuson moves to Pine Rapids, Wisconsin, in 1950, she discovers that making marriage work is harder than it looks in the pages of the Ladies’ Home Journal. Dolly tries to adapt to her new life by keeping the house, supporting her husband’s career, and joining the Ladies Aid quilting circle. Soon her loneliness and restless imagination are seized by a vacant house, owned by the once-prominent Mickelson family. As Dolly’s life and marriage become increasingly difficult, she begins to lose herself in piecing together the story of the Mickelson men and women – and unravels dark secrets woven through the generations of a family. As Keeping the House moves back and forth in time, it eloquently explores themes of heroism and passion, of men’s struggles with fatherhood and war, and of women’s conflicts with issues of conformity, identity, forbidden dreams, and love.”
PB: What originally inspired you to write the family saga that became Keeping The House?
Ellen: I was originally inspired to write about the Mickelson family when I spent a summer in beautiful Door County, Wisconsin, during college, about ten years ago. I was working at the local historical society at the time and learning a lot about the history of the area, and I found it so interesting that “summer people” came back to this idealized place year after year for a break from their everyday lives and concerns, especially since this was a lifestyle I’d never experienced. I wondered what would happen to a family hoping to go back to their old summer way of life after suffering a terrible tragedy, something they wouldn’t be able to “get over” just by escaping to this gorgeous place. The story expanded from there, and that original setting – the summer of 1919 following Jack Mickelson’s return from World War I – ultimately became just one chapter of Keeping The House.
PB: Who was your first character and which one came the easiest to you to write a point of view from?
Ellen: The Mickelson family came first, all at once – John, Wilma, Jack, Chase, Harry, and Jinny. Dolly Magnuson came toward the end of the process, but she was the easiest to write about.
PB: I have read that you admitted that Harry Mickelson is your favorite character. Who is your least favorite? Are you a character in your book?
Ellen: I really don’t have a “least favorite” character; I imagine I feel about my characters the way I would if I had children – I love them no matter how badly they behave! I don’t believe that I’m any character in my book, though of course they all contain elements of me. I’m like Dolly in many ways, although I didn’t think so when I was first writing about her. I’m more of a “sit back and think” person while she’s “act first and think later,” but we’re both dreamers and romantics and we both wish and strive for the impossible. I think that Anne is probably who I wish I was… and Wilma is who I might have been had I lived a century ago.
PB: You have a powerful attraction to the World War eras and have devoted so much of yourself to study and preserve this time in American history. What about this period attracted you in the first place?
Ellen: I’m not sure exactly where it began, but the more I learned about the first half of the twentieth century in America, the more I found it all so fascinating. I love the fashion, the music, the way people use language. I love the fact that technology is developing so rapidly and changing the way people live. And I think that during the wars, life was lived at a very intense pitch. There’s a lot of love and romance and a lot of violence and grief; I guess the contrast and the collision of all these forces are what fascinate me.
PB: When you write, do you use paper and pen or a computer? Do you have a time and place that you have to write within?
Ellen: I use a laptop computer, and I like to be comfortable – so I’m usually sprawled out on the couch, with a cup of tea not far away. I find that first thing in the morning is my best time to write, but I’ll write and revise all day long if I can.
PB: What is your favorite part of the novel writing process?
Ellen: I don’t think I could pick just one part of it – I enjoy the whole process. I love research and character development, I love writing a first draft and being surprised by what happens, and I love editing and seeing all the elements of the story coming together into a coherent whole.
PB: Did the story go the way you always thought it would or did twists and turns surprise you as you wrote them?
Ellen: There were many, many surprises along the way! When I started writing, I really didn’t know what the story was going to be, exactly, beyond the idea of following the Mickelson family through the two world wars. I didn’t at all write the chapters of Keeping The House in the sequence they appear in the book now. Some of the earliest scenes I wrote were about Elissa and Nick meeting at the dance, and about Wilma making pickles, as well as the World War I scenes from John’s point of view (including the one that now is on page 398!). I’d actually been working on the book for almost two years before Dolly came on the scene. That she became the centerpiece of the book – what I ended up structuring the rest of the novel around – was the biggest surprise of all.
PB: You wrote Wilma Mickelson as a piano virtuoso. Do you have a musical background? If so, is the piano your instrument and what is your favorite piece of music to play?
Ellen: I made Wilma a pianist because she needed to have an abiding passion, something she was conflicted about giving up. I’m not a pianist – I just took a couple of years of lessons when I was about seven and eight years old – but I was pretty serious about the flute when I was in high school and into college, so I can identify with the process of practicing a piece to try to achieve perfection. I’ve always liked playing the piano for fun, though, and I’ve enjoyed attempting to play Beethoven’s Sonata Pathetique, which Wilma plays (much more successfully!) in the novel.
PB: Have you ever made any of the recipes you researched for Dolly to prepare for her husband Byron? Any favorites? In your first years of marital bliss did you keep a cooking journal like Dolly?
Ellen: You’re funny! I haven’t made any of Dolly’s recipes, actually, but a bakery is preparing her Lacy Raisin Wafers for book clubs (people can visit my website to sign up to win some) so I’ve sampled those and they’re very good. I had fun researching the recipes and planning the menus for Dolly and Byron… and when I was newly married I guess I did try to plan out each week’s menus and pay attention to what my husband liked and didn’t like, but I certainly wasn’t as efficient as Dolly! I imagine if I’d been married in 1950 I would probably have been just like her, though, in the context of those times. Fortunately for me, getting married in 2001, I was able to put most of my obsessive creative energy into writing fiction.
PB: Throughout Keeping The House you have quotes from different publications from the first half of the twentieth century. Which one did you find most outrageous?
Ellen: The quotes from the Look magazine article “The Other Woman Is Often the Creation of the Wife” and the idea that if a husband is having an affair it is up to his wife to “make adjustments” and “be more cheerful and attractive than usual” seem pretty outrageous.
PB: On your MySpace page you have posted a picture of a banister and two portraits. Was there really a Mickelson family and house or are these pictures of your own banister and relatives?
Ellen: The Mickelsons are totally fictional, and somewhere, someone is going to be surprised that I stole photos of their relatives out of a yearbook-type section of photos in a history about a small town in Wisconsin! It wasn’t my intention – I got the book to help me lay out the town of Pine Rapids – but when I saw those photos, it was clear to me that that woman was Wilma and that man was Harry. I always rifle through old photos at antique shops, too, to see if I can find unlabeled photos that seem to be a character. The banister photo was taken in a bed and breakfast that I visited. I stole architectural details from many B&B’s in Wisconsin to design the Mickelson house.
PB: What is the most interesting question you have received while on your book tour to promote Keeping The House?
Ellen: I’ve received lots of really interesting questions, but one that sticks out in my mind is “What is the significance of the color red for Dolly?” I hadn’t really thought about it in those terms – somehow I always just knew she’d be drawn to the color. I remember when I wrote Dolly’s first quilting group scene, there was no question in my mind what she would be wearing – the flaring white dress with red trim and the bright red lipstick (which makes her feel conspicuous among the subdued ladies of the group). But as a result of getting this question, I realized that red does symbolize Dolly’s passion and daring, and shows how different she is from the other people in Pine Rapids.
Planet Books 
