Author: janetsm

In November 2025, I published Traveling Through History: A Collection of Historical Short Stories. In the fall of 2025, I published a devotional book: I Need The Light! 26 Weekly Devotionals to Help You Through Winter AND I Need The Light! Companion Journal and Diary. I write North Carolina local history and Southern American colonial historical fiction. I enjoy doing extensive research as well as the writing that research supports. My stories and novels-in-progress are about the common people. I'm the author of Harrisburg, Did You Know? Cabarrus History, Books 1 and 2 and a vintage postcard book titled The Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina.

Hearing published authors inspires me

A few weeks ago the Rocky River Readers Book Club had the privilege of having Amy Clipston as our guest speaker. Amy writes Christian Fiction and has found a niche in writing about the Amish. If you get a chance, check out her books.

Sunday night the Rocky River Readers’ guest speaker was Anna Jean Mayhew. The Dry Grass of August, her first novel, was published in 2011 to rave reviews. It follows a 14-year-old white girl in Charlotte in 1954 as she learns first-hand how blacks are treated as second-class citizens. Anna Jean (who writes under the pen name A.J. Mayhew), is working on her second novel. I can’t wait to read it!

Who would have thought a little community book club meeting at a church in a semi-rural area would attract two published authors in one year?

What I’m reading

My reading interests run the gamut from suspense to historical fiction to nonfiction. I almost always have more than one book that I’m reading all the time. My current books are Bones to Ashes, by Kathy Reichs, and Half the Sky, by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn.

Half the Sky is not easy to read. I find myself re-reading some sentences or paragraphs because the information is so difficult to take in.

I highly recommend Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide to everyone. Be prepared to be shocked and challenged.

Another book I recommend is The Dry Grass of August, by A.J. Mayhew. She is speaking at Rocky River Presbyterian Church tomorrow night to the Rocky River Readers Book Club at 7 p.m. The public is invited. If you live near Harrisburg/Concord, please come out. It’s not often that we have the opportunity to hear a published author speak and address our questions.

Getting back to research

For those of you who follow my local history column in Harrisburg Horizons newspaper every other week, my article was omitted last Sunday. It should be in the paper on October 7.

I neglected research for my local history column for a few weeks while I spent time making items to sell on Saturday, October 6 at the Harvest Fest at Harrisburg United Methodist Church. This is my first craft fair, so I’m eager to see how it goes. Variety is the spice of life, so I have enjoyed this recent diversion.

Monday will find me concentrating on my local history research and putting my fingers to the keyboard. Reading microfilmed records is tedious but full of surprises. I must psyche myself up to do more of that this winter.

Writing the newspaper column since May of 2006 has been a blessing to me, and I’m thrilled when people tell me how much they enjoy and look forward to my articles. I have enjoyed writing my “Did You Know?” column more than any other job I’ve ever had.

I plan to start blogging a couple of times a week to let you know what I’m working on and what I’m reading. Stay tuned.

A Time for Reflection

Late September is always a time for reflection for me. If my mother were alive, we would celebrate her 100th birthday on Sunday. Ironically, this weekend is also the 35th “anniversary” of my father’s death.

It was not until Daddy’s death that I really gained an appreciation for my family’s history. Genealogy has become an on-again, off-again lifelong hobby. It is rewarding and frustrating. It is never finished, so it is an interest one can enjoy at any age.

As I remember my wonderful parents this weekend, I will again realize how fortunate I was to have them. They shaped my life and my thinking in so many ways and gave me a happy and secure childhood. It is only with age that I have become aware that many children do not have that kind of experience.

I am truly blessed!

Learning to Quilt, too?

Learning to play the mountain dulcimer at the age 57 apparently wasn’t enough of a challenge for me. Or perhaps I’m having a midlife crisis. For whatever reason, this seemed like the right time in my life to do some of the things I’ve always wanted to do.

My new endeavor is quilting. I’ve joined a small quilters group in my community.  We meet monthly. Individually and collectively they have welcomed me with open arms and much encouragement.

I literally had to blow the dust off the old Singer sewing machine. It’s one of those old “thread-it-yourself” models from the 1960s. It took a while for the machine and me to get reacquainted. Thread tension is still a bit of an issue, but I’m confident that the end result will be something of which I can be proud.  Project #1:  a sample quilt made up of a dozen 12-inch square blocks, each block a different quilt pattern.

With Block #1: Roman Square successfully completed, this week I will tackle Block #2: Log Cabin. It is fun to see the various fabrics I purchased for my quilt coming together in blocks. I had not sewn since the early 1980s and had forgotten how exciting it can be to shop for fabrics.

My assignment before the February quilting group’s (Friendship Quilters) meeting is to sew sash pieces of fabric between quilt blocks sewn earlier by other members of the group. With some luck, this piece will turn out to be a table runner to be sold at our sponsoring church’s fall bazaar. Imagine something I helped sew being sold at a bazaar!

My blog continues to be all over the map when it comes to topics. It started out to be a way for me to put out the word about my writing. Life is too short and precious to be lived enjoying only one thing, though. I continue to write a local history column for Harrisburg (NC) Horizons newspaper every other week, but playing the mountain dulcimer and sewing also beg for my time and attention. It is said that a writer writes because he or she has to. I feel the same way about playing the dulcimer. If a day passes and I don’t play this beautiful Appalachian mountain instrument, I feel cheated and my day is incomplete. I play for my own enjoyment. It is one of the most relaxing hobbies I’ve ever had.

I wish for you the same desire to learn new things. Writing, music, and sewing continue to bring new friends and pleasures into my life.

What have you always wanted to do that you have never pursued?

Another visit from Anna Morrison Jackson

This afternoon I had the privilege of having another visit from Anna Morrison Jackson.  Well, not exactly. And I wasn’t hallucinating.  Nora Brooks has two alter-egos.  One is Mildred Childe Lee, a daughter of Gen. Robert E. Lee.  The other is Anna, the widow of Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson.  The Eastern Cabarrus Historical Museum in Mt. Pleasant, NC, hosted Nora Brooks this afternoon as she did her famous portrayal of Anna Morrison Jackson.  One minute she is Nora, but in the blink of an eye she takes on the persona of Anna Jackson. As usual, the audience members were spellbound by Nora’s superb performance.  I’ve seen it several times, but I never tire of it.  Anna shares different facts and memories each time she comes for a visit.

It was a relaxing way to spend a hot summer Sunday afternoon.

I found the mountain dulcimer tablature for “Ashokan Farewell” online a couple of days ago, so I am happy as a clam. I love that haunting melody, but couldn’t remember the name of it. So many songs to learn… so little time.

Teaching an old dog new tricks

It took me a long time to figure out who I was.  It wasn’t until 2001 that I took my first writing course and started working toward my lifelong desire to be a writer. 

There seems to be a pattern here, for nearly a decade later I took the plunge and purchased a mountain lap dulcimer — something I have wanted since I was a freshman in college. I recently attended a week-long dulcimer school.  It was a struggle but a rewarding experience.  I came home wanting to play the dulcimer all the time. 

My love of folk music dates back to the 1960s. I was fortunate to be old enough then to gain an appreciation of the folk music revival — Peter, Paul & Mary, The Kingston Trio, and others.  It took that interest 45 years to resurface, but I’m now reaping the benefits of playing a dulcimer well enough for my own enjoyment.  Perhaps with practice I’ll play well enough to perform for others.

I wouldn’t want to relive my teen and young adult years, but if I could I would buy a dulcimer as early as I could afford one and I would take a writing course the first chance I got. 

So many hobbies and interests… so little time!

Too much of a good thing

Our drought and heatwave broke around midnight last night.  After 18 consecutive days of 90 degrees or higher, it was in the pleasant 80s today.

With no rain in weeks, everything in the garden that the deer hadn’t eaten was burned up.  This is the first total garden failure I’ve had.  We caught up on rain today, though.  We had 2.25 inches between 12:15 and 3:00 a.m. and another 2.5 inches between 2:00 and 2:45 p.m. this afternoon.

I got the 2,500-word 1849 meteorite article drafted for The Old Farmer’s Almanac, but I need to do some editing before I pitch the idea to the almanac.

Tonight I proofread and submitted my seven-part “Did You Know?” newspaper series to the editor of Harrisburg Horizons weekly newspaper. 

I didn’t finish reading The Testament, by John Grisham for the Rocky River Readers Book Club, but I went to the discussion on Monday night. I want to finish it, even though I know the ending. I hate to leave a book unfinished.

I’m reading Life of Pi by Yann Martel for the Bookends Book Club.  I’m also reading Words That Hurt, Words That Heal:  How to Choose Words Wisely and Well, by Rabbi Joseph Telushkin.

A Day in the Life of a Freelance Writer

Making time to write has been a challenge this week.  I haven’t gotten enough sleep, a carpenter or painter has been here everyday, breathing paint fumes, poor air quality outdoors due to this heat wave….  It has been difficult to sit down at the computer and put any words “on paper.”

My goal for today is to take the research I did for a series of newspaper columns about an 1849 meteorite and write a 2,500-word piece to pitch to an almanac.

I entered the opening pages of my manuscript of The Spanish Coin in a writing contest this spring.  Two of the three critiques I received in return were disappointing.  It is taking me a while to get pysched up to work on that project again.

I’m currently reading The Testament, by John Grisham.  Other recent good reads:  The Help, by Kathryn Stockett (my new all-time favorite book!), The Postmistress, by Sarah Blake, several Jodi Picoult books, and Not My Daughter, by Barbara Delinsky.

It’s time for me to get to work on that meteorite piece.