Personal Photo 002 Irene, describe yourself for our visitors.

I’m happily married to my husband of several years. I’m a native of West Virginia, living only five miles from my birthplace. I have a MA degree in History and an AB degree in Secondary Education. I taught History to 9th graders in a public school for several years, but retired in the mid 1980′s to have more time for writing.

I’m very active in my local church, where I play either the piano or organ, and direct the choir, which includes extensive programs at Christmas and Easter. I’m also the church treasurer, prepare the weekly bulletin and serve on the Church Council. I’m active in the local women’s society.  I’ve been a member of this same church since I was eleven-years-old.  I have a card ministry and average sending 20-25 cards each month.  I’ve taught Sunday School since I was in my teens, and currently I’m teaching a class of 25-30 young adults.

I like the old hymns of the church, country and western music, classical numbers, folk music, barbershop music.

I’m too busy with writing and church activities to have many hobbies, although I used to sew, crochet afghans and baby blankets, and tablecloths, and also to make quilts. My husband I like to travel, and we have visited all 50 states and 35 foreign countries.  We also average walking 10-15 miles each week.  Any other spare time I have, I spend reading, usually books not in the genre I write.  I have over 2,000 books in the house, so I often pull old books off the shelf.  Right now, I’m reading MISS WILLIE, by Janice Holt Giles. It’s a story of mountainous Kentucky, published in the ’50′s.

How do you find time to connect with God?

I start the day with prayer and Bible study. I’ve read the Bible through at least 20 times, but nowadays, I concentrate on books that I feel I need for personal living or in preparation for teaching. I do not feel that God is a far-off Soverign, but one that I commune with daily, at any time, any place.

Who are your favorite authors? Favorite books?

I have many friends who are excellent authors, so to prevent offending anyone, I won’t mention anyone who writes the same genre that I do.  Among current secular authors, I’m a fan of John Grisham, Mary Higgins Clark, and Jan Karon. I will  mention some of my all-time favorites which I often take from my shelves and read–Phyllis Whitney, Victoria Holt, Mary Stewart.  And when I think of Favorite Authors, Patricia Veryan looms high on my list. I particularly like her style of writing, and I’ve collected over 30 of her books, some at considerable expense. She wrote Georgian and Regency romances, and although I like 90% of them equally well, HAD I NEVER LOVED, is my favorite.

Tell us about your journey to publication.

I’ve wanted to be an author since I was 11-years-old. Throughout my childhood and youth, I wrote "things’.—newspaper articles, poems for special occasions, programs to use at our church. My first submission to a publisher was a Christmas play, which we had presented at our church. It was well received and I sent it to a publisher. It was rejected, but the editor made some practical suggestions which encouraged me to further my education before I tried to write anything major.   During my college preparation, I didn’t have time to write, but when I finished my Master’s degree, I said to myself, "Now you are an author."  I began to work regularly, diligently toward publication, but it was 10 years after I sent  my first book proposal before I had a book published.  This was in 1984 and since then I’ve been fortunate, with God’s help, to have 45 books published.  I’ve published with some of the major CBA authors – Thomas Nelson, Fleming Revell, Zondervan, Kregel, Barbour and Steeple Hill, and now Summerside Press.

Tell us about your current book?

LOVE FINDS YOU in VALENTINE, NEBRASKA was a subject suggested to me by the  publisher, Summerside Press. They have launched a new series of inspirational romances and they chose unusual, quirky, romantic names of REAL places around which to write the story.  The editor sent a list of their suggested towns to me, and as I’ve written a few other books with Nebraska settings, I decided this would be a good subject. I will quote from the excerpt on the book cover.

"A thoroughly modern young woman is drawn into an ancient feud that has nothing to do with her, or so she thinks.  When Kennedy Blaine inherits Circle Cross Ranch in Valentine, Nebraska, her first impulse is to sell it. Her second impulse is to travel to Valentine, a town that seems to have come right out of the pages of an old western, and visit the ranch.

"Kennedy finds herself charmed by the ranch, and by its attractive manager, Derek Sterling. She questions her decision to sell Circle Cross, especially when her cousin, Smith Blaine, mysteriously conceals the identity of the person who wants to buy it.  But when Kennedy decides to spend the summer in her ancestral home, she’s subjected to a series of harassments. When Kennedy and Dereck try to discover who’s behind the offenses, they’re drawn into a feud that just might divide the town–and place Kennedy’s own life in danger."

How did you come up with ideas for this book?

I’ve always been a fan of western books. Also, my husband is a native of Nebraska and we make yearly visits to visit our relatives there.  I already had an idea for this book plot in mind, so I easily connected the idea to Valentine.

List your three most recent books.

  • THE SOUND OF SECRETS, Steeple Hill, Love Inspired, April, 2007
  • MOUNTAINS STAND STRONG, Barbour HP, July, 2007
  • MADE FOR EACH OTHER, Steeple Hill, Love Inspired, June, 2008

What’s next for you?

I don’t like to give details of my books until I have a contract for them.  However, I’m researching for two historicals at the time.

Where can visitors find you online?