Shelle Sumners's Blog

My friend Rachel Wilcox Miano is part of a Seattle Habitat for Humanity team that in September will build a safe, affordable home for a Bolivian family in need. Why build in Bolivia, you ask? From the Seattle-King County Habitat for Humanity website: 

“Bolivia has a population of over 10 million people. More than half of Bolivian families live in huts that do not meet the minimum living conditions, lacking basic services and sanitation. Approximately 69 percent of Bolivian houses have dirt floors; these houses make families susceptible to contract diseases such as major respiratory problems and stomach pains. Children are the ones most affected by these conditions.”

Rachel is asking for donations to help fund the Seattle team’s participation in the Bolivia build, and the top three donors will each receive a copy of Grace Grows along with the Grace Grows Original Soundtrack CD. Lee and I are very pleased to be a part of this love story.

Please consider helping out with a donation of any amount. Go to the BoliviaBuild2014 website for more information. Thank you!

This post is from Shelle Sumners. Please click through to comment and read more from Shelle Sumners!

Today it snowed in Pennsylvania. Outside, it looked like this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I got a lot done, including reading a good bit of the Bhagavad-Gita. I’m reading it as research for the novel I’m working on and also just for me because it is, well, life-changingly profound ancient scripture. A holy gospel of the Hindu tradition. This is the edition I’m reading now, but I have just ordered another translation and can’t wait to read it as well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I cleaned my office some; I dusted and filed and recycled. I looked closely at my semi-neglected plants and discovered that the daisy I bought last summer and brought inside a couple of months ago is, in spite of the snow, being miraculous:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then I found on a shelf something I’d tucked away and completely forgotten about; a little book I bought at an antique store last spring in New Hope because I loved the beautiful cover.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I don’t remember giving the inside of the book more than a glance when I bought it. Today I opened it and gently turned the pages, and I found a message hidden inside:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I thought first of the religious and musical connotations of gospel (with a capital G), but I wanted to know the origin of the word. In Webster’s I found:

First Known Use: before 12th century. Middle English, from Old English gōdspel (translation of Late Latin evangelium), from gōd good + spell tale

I am, indeed, trying to write a gospel. A good tale.

Let it be so.

This post is from Shelle Sumners. Please click through to comment and read more from Shelle Sumners!

I have a very scary Halloween story to tell you.

When I was growing up, my grandmother taught me how to use a sewing machine and make clothes. Oh yes, I know how to sew. And I do not like it. Trying to follow pattern instructions, correctly insert a zipper, hand-sew a straight hemline—these are things that make me sweaty and cranky. And still, I made almost all of my daughter’s Halloween costumes as she was growing up. Because she was my kid, it was her one childhood, and I’m a masochist.

I don’t mean bed-sheet ghost costumes. I mean Marie Antoinette, with layered skirts and elaborate pearl-and-rose-festooned wig. A Dorothy costume that was a real, tailored little Dorothy dress, not the blue-gingham polyester, one-size-fits-all, sack-like thing you could buy at Party Fair. I even made her ruby slippers—perhaps not brilliantly engineered, but it was kind of magical that she left a red-glitter trail all over our neighborhood, trick-or-treating.

The year my daughter was nine, we decided she would be a flower fairy for Halloween. The body of the costume was easy; I had a long, gauzy, skirt that we pulled up to her neck and cut holes in for her arms. She wore this over a leotard and tights, with store-bought fairy wings. The special thing that pulled the whole costume magically together was the headpiece I made for her—a tiara of silky, autumnal flowers and leaves. I shaped a sturdy headband from florist’s wire, covered it with purple felt, and hand-sewed onto it dusky roses, ivy, and maple leaves (some of them sparkly with crystal glitter), creating a halo of autumn beauty to frame my little girl’s lovely face.

The flower fairy tiara

So, perhaps you’re wondering when this story is going to get scary. Here we go.

While I was sewing the fairy headpiece over a couple of nights, I’d sit on the couch and watch TV. On breaks, I’d stick the sewing needle into the arm of the couch, get up, put my daughter to bed, putter around, etc. The night I finished the headpiece, I stuck the needle in the arm of the couch and, apparently, forgot about it—until Hobson found it.

Hobson is our cat. Hobson ate the needle. How did we figure this out? Hobson, ordinarily very good-natured and friendly, stopped eating, purring, and lap-sitting. And although he is a black-and-white cat, he began to look distinctly green. Glassy eyed. Our vet told us he had a virus, and it would pass. So we took him back home and waited a day or two, in vain, for Hobson’s purr to return. We went back to the vet and recoiled in horror when an x-ray revealed the ghostly white silhouette of a sewing needle lodged in his intestine.

I know, right? Scary. Obviously, I didn’t feel too good about this.

Hobson had surgery and got his appetite and purr back. He forgave me instantly, because he is a cat and naturally a very serene and zenlike creature. And perhaps he felt that a one-thousand-dollar veterinary bill was punishment enough.

So, this is a scary story with a nice ending. There is no sad little tuxedo-cat ghost gliding silently through my house; just a sweet, live one. And we are very, very careful not to leave bite-sized, gleaming, sharp objects lying about. EVER.

Happy Halloween!

Just napping, not dead

This post is from Shelle Sumners. Please click through to comment and read more from Shelle Sumners!

Today in Pennsylvania the air is cool and smoky. I always return to thoughts of mystery in October; the mystery of life and what happens after life. Some believe the veil between the worlds of the living and the dead becomes thinner at this time of year.

Last weekend Lee and I visited one of Bucks County’s historic places, the Van Sandt covered bridge. It was built in 1875 and is said to be haunted by the ghosts of horse thieves who were hung there.

We wandered around, walked through the bridge and back. It was just a quiet old wooden structure. We sat on a low wall outside the bridge, enjoying the fresh air and the burble of the water in the creek below.

Then a couple drove up and parked on the side of the road. They got out of their jeep and I saw that the man was carrying one of those devices that lights up when it detects an electromagnetic field (I know this from seeing one of those ghost-hunting shows on cable TV). The woman had an adorable little bulldog, with a pink bandanna around her neck, on a leash.

They walked up the road to the covered bridge, but at the threshold of the bridge the dog stopped. She sat down and nervously peered inside. The woman tugged the leash and spoke coaxingly to her. The dog wagged her tail. She looked sweet and sheepish and awfully sorry to be so uncooperative, but she absolutely refused to go into the Van Sandt bridge.

October. Mystery.

There are ghosts, by the way, in the novel I’m writing now.

October also marks the one-year anniversary of the debut of Grace Grows. Thank you so much to everyone who has read the book and listened to the songs and reviewed it on Amazon or Good Reads or recommended it to friends. Thank you for communicating with me and Lee with such enthusiasm and kindness. You have made this one of the best years of our lives. In celebration, I’m giving away five copies of the book and the original soundtrack CD on Good Reads.

GRACE GROWS giveaway on Good Reads

 

 

This post is from Shelle Sumners. Please click through to comment and read more from Shelle Sumners!

Please join us!

Special Event–Summer Musicfest at Barnes & Noble Oxford Valley

Lee Morgan and Shelle Sumners

Friday August 16, 2013     8:00 PM 

Join us in our B&N Cafe on the first and third Fridays during the Summer at 8:00 p.m. for our Summer Musicfest. This is our last Friday of the summer, and we will be hosting Lee Morgan and Shelle Sumners. Shelle will discuss and sign her novel  Grace Grows . Lee Morgan will perform the songs he wrote and recorded for the novel and the Grace Grows Original Soundtrack.

Barnes & Noble
The Court @ Oxford Valley

210 Commerce Blvd, Fairless Hills, PA 19030, 215-269-0442

This post is from Shelle Sumners. Please click through to comment and read more from Shelle Sumners!

AMAZON UK Kindle Daily Deal-GRACE GROWS for £0.99! Please spread the word!

GRACE GROWS Kindle UK Daily Deal

If you’re in the UK today, take advantage of this! Grace Grows for Kindle at a huge discount ! Tell all your friends!

GRACE GROWS Amazon UK Kindle Daily Deal

 

 

This post is from Shelle Sumners. Please click through to comment and read more from Shelle Sumners!

I am in awe of Amy Sue Nathan, and have been for a while. Her Women’s Fiction Writers blog, with its inspiring weekly interviews of authors, is a rich gift to all of us who love to read and write stories about women’s journeys. And now Amy’s own debut novel, The Glass Wives, is in stores! I am thrilled and honored to say that we are “book sisters,” having both been edited by Brenda Copeland at St. Martin’s Press.

I’m reading The Glass Wives now (just started it last night) and am loving it. It’s my first official summer read! Woo hoo! How I have longed to begin summer reading! And look how pretty the cover is. (Scroll down) The bonus of this book is that you can look at that sublime, blue-sky-and-china-cup cover any time you want to.

I have two copies of The Glass Wives to give away. Leave a comment below and tell me where you spent your best summer ever, or just say any old summery thing, and you will be entered to win.

(One entry per person, and please include your e-mail address or another way to reach you if you win.  US and Canada only. Giveaway ends June 21 at midnight EST.)

 

This post is from Shelle Sumners. Please click through to comment and read more from Shelle Sumners!

I’m giving away 3 copies of Grace Grows and the Grace Grows Original Soundtrack! You can enter on Facebook, or here, by posting a comment and telling me what’s at the top of your summer to-read list. Inspire me!

If you live in the US, Canada, the UK, Germany, Australia, or New Zealand, you are eligible to win. Please spread the word to all your friends who are looking for a fun summer read/listen!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

This post is from Shelle Sumners. Please click through to comment and read more from Shelle Sumners!

“GRACE GROWS by Shelle Sumners is my big discovery from 2012.”

–Reviewer Leigh Davis, Heroes and Heartbreakers

http://www.heroesandheartbreakers.com/blogs/2013/04/too-good-to-be-true-finding-authors-like-kristan-higgins

This post is from Shelle Sumners. Please click through to comment and read more from Shelle Sumners!