Tag: River North Fiction
Welcome to the New Rivernorthfiction.com!
As you can see, we’ve made quite a few changes to our little corner of the Internet. In the future, you can expect to see posts from us at least three times a week. We’ll be sharing interviews with authors, giveaways, and plenty of insights into the world of fiction– along with much more. We’re excited to connect with our authors, readers, and friends through a sleeker site and on a more consistent basis.
To celebrate, we’re giving something away every week in the month of May!
May Giveaway 1:
For the rest of this week and next (May 1-10, 2013) We are giving away 10 copies of the just-released Widow of Gettysburg by Jocelyn Green.
To enter the contest, follow these three simple steps:
UPDATED: The original Step 2 has been removed. Just follow the remaining instructions below!
1) “Like” our page on Facebook (if you already do, no to need like it again).
2) “Share” this Facebook post (“New Website and Book Giveaway!”) on your own Facebook timeline. UPDATE: Make sure you click “Share” on our post on Facebook so we can track who has shared it! If you have already shared it another way, leave us a comment to let us know!
2) Leave a comment on one of our Facebook or blog posts sometime before May 10, including your name and e-mail. Multiple comments will only be counted once. Please, thoughtful responses only. We’ll give you plenty of prompts to which you can respond.
Don’t worry, we’ll remind you as we get closer to the contest deadline! Continue reading / Leave a comment…
Behind the Scenes: A Look at What Inspired “Still Life In Shadows”
I confess that Mose Gingerich was my inspiration behind Still Life in Shadows. But the blurb in a magazine about Ira Wagler’s memoir, Growing up Amish, is what I kept inside my desk. 
What moved me about a memoir I had yet to read?
The book description from the magazine read:
“One fateful starless night, 17-year-old Ira got up at 2:00 a.m., left a scribbled note under his pillow, packed his earthly belongings, and walked away from is Old Order Amish community in Iowa. You’ll be riveted by this powerful memoir of what led him to leave, his search for personal freedom, and his conversion to Christianity.”
Coversion to Christianity! I loved the way that in that moment of reading about Ira’s book, I felt an affirmation within my own heart. Because, for so long, I had wondered how a religion who preached that leaving it meant an eternity in Hell, could be considered as pure and perfect as we English folk make the Amish out to be.
While many may see the Amish as quaint and simple, those who have left their Amish communities show us another side of the plain people.
Saloma Furlong, a former Amish, and author of Why I Left the Amish, says on her blog: “When I left the Amish, I only saw what I felt is the punitive nature of their religion — one belief in particular posed a problem for me. I was taught, from the time I could understand the concept that because I was born Amish, God wanted me to stay Amish, and if I left, all hope of my salvation would be lost.
