I love dogs, cheesecake, genealogy, local history, good historical fiction, Edisto Island, and the Blue Ridge Mountains. I live on land that’s been in my family since the 1760s. I’m an insomniac. I hope to write well enough to keep you up at night, too.

My journey as a writer has been convoluted. I’m a political junkie, so my major in college was political science and my first career was in government. I transitioned into the travel industry for a few years before being laid low by a chronic illness. In my time of not being able to work full-time, I took a fiction writing class at Queens University of Charlotte and it changed my life forever.

I spend my time reading and writing historical fiction. I’m working on my first novel. It’s set in the 1760s in the mountains of Virginia and the piedmont of North Carolina. The locations in the novel are all along The Great Wagon Road as young Sarah Kimmons and her brother and father make their way from Windy Cove, Virginia to Salisbury, North Carolina. With the working title The Heirloom, this book covers the backstory of Sarah — what makes her what she is. In Book 2, tentatively titled The Doubloon, there will be a murder in The Waxhaws. How is Sarah caught up in the crime?

As a general rule, I blog on Monday mornings. I blog about the books I read and I blog about my journey as an aspiring novelist. Sometimes I blog about history. In 2019, I started writing occasional #OnThisDay blog posts to highlight events in history. I share what I’m learning on my own journey to become a published fiction author.

I dabble in playing the lap dulcimer and quilting.

If you’d like to support my writing until I get my novel published, feel free to ask for my vintage postcard book, The Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, at your favorite independent bookstore, or order it online from Amazon.com.

I thoroughly enjoyed doing the research and the writing for that book. I wanted to include so much history in it that the publisher (Arcadia Publishing) had to remind me, “This isn’t a history book.” I did my best to make it one, though! I think you’ll find it educational and entertaining.

After writing a local history column for Harrisburg Horizons newspaper for nearly seven years, I published those local history articles in Harrisburg, Did You Know? Cabarrus History, Book 1 and Harrisburg, Did You Know? Cabarrus History, Book 2. Those books are available in paperback and e-books on Amazon and in paperback at Second Look Books in Harrisburg, NC.

Also, visit my website, http://janetmorrisonbooks.com/ to see the genealogy books and cookbook my sister and I have written. The Aunts in the Kitchen: Southern Family Recipes is available in paperback on Amazon and at Second Look Books in Harrisburg, NC. Click on the “subscribe” button on my website to get a free downloadable copy of my historical short story, “Slip Sliding Away” and to receive my e-newsletters.

I need to get back to work on my novel. See you at the library or the bookstore!

Janet

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