Amy’s Amish series includes the Kauffman Amish Bakery Series and the Hearts of the Lancaster Grand Hotel Series. Her books have achieved the Christian Fiction bestseller lists, including the CBA (Christian Book Association) bestseller list and the ECPA (Evangelical Christian Publishers Association) bestseller list. Amy signed with the Seymour Agency in 2006 and states her dreams came true in 2007 when she sold her first book, A Gift of Grace.

Tracy:   Hey there. Welcome to another episode of Buggy Talk. I'm your host, Tracy Fredrychowski. And this is podcast Episode 19.

Each week, I bring you the story behind the stories, along with the storytellers. For this week's episode, we have Amy Clipston onboard.

Amy’s Amish series includes the Kauffman Amish Bakery Series and the Hearts of the Lancaster Grand Hotel Series. Her books have achieved the Christian Fiction bestseller lists, including the CBA (Christian Book Association) bestseller list and the ECPA (Evangelical Christian Publishers Association) bestseller list. Amy signed with the Seymour Agency in 2006 and states her dreams came true in 2007 when she sold her first book, A Gift of Grace.

Hello, Amy. And thank you for joining us. How are you today?

Amy: Doing great. Thank you for having me. Oh, you're very welcome. You know, you have an incredible lineup of Amish books and I for one have enjoyed many of them over the years. 

And I have to tell you, I've been looking forward to our interview all week. You have a new book out entitled An Amish Singing, but before we talk about that new release, I like to take our listeners for an inside look at some of their favorite authors writing career. So can I pick your brain for a few minutes?

Amy: Absolutely.

Questions asked to Amy:

• What are the essential elements of good writing?
• Tell us what comes first for you, the plot, or the characters? 
• When did you first consider yourself a writer? 
• Tell us what your writing space looks like. 

Tracy: That moves us right into your latest release, which is An Amish Singing. I love how you broke it down into four parts that match up with four of my favorite hymns. I love that. So would you please tell us how you went about picking those particular four songs and please go ahead and share them with our listeners and just tell us a little bit about this new book.

Amy: It is a novella collection with four stories that intertwine about four young couples. The first story is called Hymn of Praise. The first story is about a young woman named Sharon and her friend, Jay. And she decides that she wants her friends to get together, to sing for people in the community who are either down on their luck, having hard time, maybe a family member is ill or they're dealing with grief. And then she and her mother hosts meals in their home for tourists. 

Listen to the whole podcast for Amy’s in-depth description of An Amish Singing.

• What is the key theme or the message in the book that you want your readers to get from it? 

Tracy: We have something really special for our listeners today. They are going to hear your whole first chapter.

Reading from An Amish Singing.

• So I have to ask what's next for Amy. Are you working on anything at the present you'd like to share with your readers about?

Tracy: Amy, I want to thank you so much for spending time with us this wee

Serena is best known for her novel made for movie Love Finds You In Sugarcreek and Uncommon Grace. Since then, she has published many more books and won numerous awards, including Romance Writer’s of America RITA award for The Measure of Katie Calloway, American Christian Fiction Writer’s CAROL award for A Promise To Love, and her Under A Blackberry Moon was a finalist in the CHRISTY awards.

Tracy: Hey there. Welcome to another episode of Buggy Talk. I'm your host, Tracy Fredrychowski. This is podcast Episode 18.

Each week. I bring you the story behind the stories, along with the storytellers. For this week's episode, we have Serena Miller. Serena is best known for her novel made for movie Love Finds You In Sugarcreek and Uncommon Grace. Since then, she has published many more books and won numerous awards, including Romance Writer’s of America RITA award for The Measure of Katie Calloway, American Christian Fiction Writer’s CAROL award for A Promise To Love, and her Under A Blackberry Moon was a finalist in the CHRISTY awards.

That's quite a bio, Serena. Thank you so much for joining us. How are you today?

Serena: Oh, I'm great. I'm looking forward to this. Thank you.

Tracy: I know that we have a lot of things to talk about today.  The main thing is your contribution to the Amish Christmas Miracles Collection. But before we dig into that, I really like to take our listeners behind the scenes of their favorite authors, but you are pretty special because you're the first author I've interviewed that had one of her books made into them into a movie. I can only imagine that our listeners want to hear more about that.

Questions asked to Serena. To hear her answers, I invite you to listen to this excellent interview. She takes us for a walk onto the movie set of Love Finds You in Sugarcreek.

• Tell me when your books were made into a movie, did you get to go and visit the movie set?
• Would you do it again if you were presented with the opportunity?  

Amish Christmas Miracles Collection

• What inspired you to contribute to this project?
• Tell us a little bit about your story.
• Can you read as your first page?
• If this book was made into a movie, who would be the star?
• What’s next for Serena?
• Is there anything you'd like to tell your readers? 

Tracy: That wraps up this week's episode, you can find all the episodes of Buggy Talk Podcast on your favorite podcasting channel, or you can find the links at my website at tracyfredrychowski.com. Next week, we'll have Amy Clipston onboard to tell us about her latest projects. We'll see you next week on the buggy talk podcast.

Sara Harris, Sara has written novels for publication since 2011 and has won awards in the genres of Historical Romance, Amish Romance, Medieval Historical, Children's Fiction, and Children's Nonfiction. She holds her Bachelor of Arts degree in Medieval History, is a member of Romance Writers of America.

Tracy:  Hey there. Welcome to another episode of Buggy Talk. I'm your host, Tracy Fredrychowski. Each week I bring you the story behind the stories, along with the storytellers. For this week's episode, we have Sarah Harris on board. Sarah has written novels for publication since 2011. She has won awards in historical romance, Amish romance, medieval historical children's fiction, and children's nonfiction. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in medieval history and is a member of the Romance Writers of America.

Sarah, that's quite a bio and quite a diverse writing genre that I'm very impressed with. I can't wait to hear more about it.

Sara: Well, thank you so much, Tracy. I really appreciate it. And thank you for having me here. A lot of people ask why so many different genres, and my answer is really quite easy. That's really the only way I've been able to combat writer's block. 

Tracy: Perfect. I could see how that happens because you know when you're right in the same genre all the time your, your mind gets a little stale. So yes, this is a great way to keep the creative juices flowing, as you would say it. Well, I appreciate you so much for joining us today.

We're going to talk about a few things, especially your newest release, Rebekah’s Quilt. But before we dig into that project, I do like to give our listeners a little inside, look at their favorite authors' writing career. Do you mind if I ask you some personal questions?   

Questions asked to Sara:

• How many books you've written so far?
• Out of, out of all of the books you've written, what would you say is your favorite?
• What is the most surprising thing you discovered while you were writing?
• Out of all of those books, what one character stood out for you that maybe is your favorite character?
• Does your husband ever read your books and say, Hey, I think I said that?
• Where do you get your inspiration from?
• Let’s talk about Rebekah’s Quilt. Tell us a little bit about that main character and why she holds a special place in your heart.
• How did you go about researching that book? 
• Can you read us the first page?

Sara reading Rebekah’s Quilt.

Tracy: You painted a beautiful picture. Thank you so much. Do you, have you have a website?

Sara: Yes, I sure do. And that is SaraHarrisBooks.com.

Tracy: I want to thank you again for spending time with us. And I look forward to reading Rebekah’s Quilt and the other three books that are going to go along with that story. So that wraps up this week's episode. Next week, we'll have Serena Miller as our guests to talk about her latest release. So we'll see you next week on the Buggy Talk Podcast.