Today I put the finishing touches on a short story for Christmas. I’ll be shipping it in my newsletter by the end of the month. If you haven’t, be sure to subscribe to my free newsletter. Don’t miss “A Good Christmas.”

The story is set in a small town in eastern Kansas in 1933, the depths of the Great Depression. I enjoyed researching toys from the era. It was amazing what a dollar would buy. If you’d like to thumb through a Sears Wish Book from days gone by, check out http://www.wishbookweb.com/the-catalogs/.

I also discovered that pocket watches used by railroad personnel had to meet certain standards. One was accuracy. The watch could not loose more than 30 seconds during a week. The railroads employed inspectors to see that employees’ watches met the standards.

In other news . . . I finished a rewrite of Growing Up Ozark Poor, the opening of which was a semi-finalist in the 2023 ACFW’s Genesis Contest. I loved the score sheets and critique I got from the judges and worked through the manuscript making changes to the characters, adding a few chapters, and more. Today I worked to identify a list of agents to query.

Thanks again for your interest in my writing!