Piecework  Newsletter

Volume XVIII, Issue Two | June 2020

My Five Books

Recently, the editor of the alumni magazine at my alma mater, the University of Denver, asked several of us to list the five books we’d take if we were stranded on a desert island—or in this case, home-bound due to coronavirus.

My first thought was the Bible. What’s more comforting than that? Besides, there are Old Testament chapters that I’ve never even tried to read. But I figured everybody else would list the Bible and I ought to come up with something different. So these are the books I listed:

Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott. You know if you’ve read any of my book suggestions in Piecework that I love Lamott’s books on faith. They’re all g...

Volume XVIII, Issue One | March 2020

Reviewing Books

When I began reviewing books for the Denver Post in 1961, the book editor, a crusty, literate guy named Stanton Peckham, told me not to review a book if it was no good. “Why waste space on a bad book?” Stan asked. (The exception was a very important book.)

Back then, there was plenty of space for book reviews. The Post had a regular Sunday book section, and reviews ran during the week on the editorial page. The paper ran a separate book section at Christmas. The Post reviewed fiction and nonfiction, mysteries, romance, science-fiction, cookbooks, poetry, children’s books, and everything else. I reviewed anything that appealed to me.

And ever...

Volume XVII, Issue Four | December 2019

The Spoilt Quilt and Other Stories

I had published exactly one short story in my life when Five Star Publishing approached me about writing one for an anthology on frontier women. Not a chance! I thought. Short stories aren’t my thing. Coming up with plots is so difficult for me that I didn’t want to waste one on a short story.

Still, I was intrigued by the idea. There was something attractive about writing a story that was only 5,000 words instead of a novel that was close to 100,000. I had finished a manuscript and didn’t know what to tackle next. And then, most important, an idea crept into my mind, an idea that reminded me a little of The Persian Pi...

Volume XVI, Issue Three | September 2019

Westering Women

Westering Women won’t be published until January, but I want to tell you about it now. I’m really excited about this book, because I thought about it for years but was never able to come up with a plot.

When I was a girl, I loved the Robert Taylor movie “Westward the Women,” about a man leading a group of brides to Oregon. I liked it because, despite the sappy love story (Taylor slaps the hysterical woman in one of those thanks-I-needed-that situations), the women were competent, not like the usual batch of filmdom’s western heroines. They were either temptresses or mindless stand-by-your-man types, who screamed and were paralyzed when...

Volume XVI, Issue Two | June 2019

Someplace to Call Home

Someplace to Call Home, my fourth mid-grade novel, comes out in August. It’s for ages eight to 12. Here’s how Sleeping Bear Press describes it:

In 1933 what’s left of the Turner family—twelve-year-old Hallie and her two brothers—finds itself driving the back roads of rural America. The children have been swept up into a new migratory way of life.
 

America is facing two devastating crises: the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. Hundreds of thousands of people in cities across the country have lost jobs. In rural America it isn’t any better as crops suffer from the never-ending drought. Driven by severe economic hardship, thousands of...

Volume XV, Issue One | March 2019

We all know about the clean-out guru Marie Kondo. She’s the author of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. Because of her, thousands of women are purging their homes of clutter and dragging garbage bags of discards to the Goodwill. I admit that after hearing about her, I went through my closet and tossed out those size six jeans that I will never wear again—well, ok, the size eights, too—and shoes with heels more than an inch high.

I even took a good look at my house to see what I could get rid of. After all, my home is so cluttered with antiques and art and Indian objects and, well, junk, that everything had to be rearranged after I gave Bob a picture fo...

Volume XIV, Issue Four | November 2018
 

Most novels are either character-driven or plot-driven. Mine are character drive, partly because I have a hard time with plots, but mostly because I find people the most interesting part of any novel, including mine.

For me, a novel sometimes starts with a setting, say a house (The Bride’s House) or a place (Natchez in New Mercies.) But more often, it starts with the characters—a run-away bride (The Patchwork Bride) or a midwife (The Last Midwife) or a quilter (A Quilt for Christmas.) Then I go looking for a plot. The plot’s the toughest part. Right now, I have a wonderful setting, a character I love (and a dozen minor characters), and I’m lying awake...

Join Sandra Dallas on Friday, February 1, 2019 for an Author Talk at 6:45pm at the Windsor Recreation Center in Colorado.  There will be a book signing immediately following the talk.  

Volume XIII, Issue Three | September 2018

I wrote my first book more than 50 years ago, using my grandfather’s portable typewriter. When I made a mistake, I xxx’d over or used an eraser to make corrections. There wasn’t even White Out back then. I also used carbon paper to make a second copy because copy machines weren’t around. And I mailed the manuscript, my fingers crossed that the book would not go astray.

My how things have changed! Today I write on a computer, print out as many copies as I want, and email the book to my publisher.

That’s made me think about the changes I’ve seen in the last half-century that I’ve been writing. Here are a few things I couldn’t imagine when I began: Comput...

Volume XIII, Issue Two | June 2018

My 15th novel, The Patchwork Bride, is scheduled for publication on June 5. I wrote about the book in the last issue of Piecework.  It’s the story of Nell, who runs away from marriage three different times, from three different men. And it’s bookended with the tale of another runaway bride. 

The main story takes place in New Mexico, Colorado and Kansas over a period of several years, starting in the late 1890s, but the secondary story is set in the 1950s, during the Korean War.

Kirkus writes, “Skilled writing and pacing propel the story which is warm and heartfelt” and calls it “gently entertaining.”
 

My Life As A Writer

Why do you write?

It’s...