Serena

About Serena

https://www.serenabmiller.com

Posts by Serena Miller:

April 2, 2013

An Awesome Classroom!

A few weeks ago I was in Arkansas visiting my sister when a friend asked me to come speak to her class for their career studies. (Jake – Write what’s on your heart, and it’ll be okay!) It was raining that morning and on the way to the school my car got rear-ended while I was waiting at a traffic light. (It was totaled.) When I arrived at the school, I was shaken up, wet, miserable, and the last thing I wanted to do was teach a class. (Alaina – It’s A LOT harder than it looks… but it’s a lot of FUN too!) Then the kids came! Bright, eager, kind. Forgiving and attentive even when I lost my train of thought. Those precious children even took notes as I stumbled through my presentation. (Heidi – Never give up on your dreams either!) When I invited them to be part of a real-life “brainstorming session” about a nutshell idea I had about writing a historical romance based on research I’d done about the Ohio River in the 1700’s, they participated with enthusiasm and creativity. (Scarlett – I’ll most definitely let your teacher know!) Sometimes magic happens when a group of […]

February 22, 2013

An Amish Wedding Invitation: New eShort!

SerenaUncategorized 5

Sometimes people ask me to describe the mental process I go through in order to come up with the stories I write. I never know how to answer. Frankly, if someone could step inside my head, they would probably be as confused about the process as I am. However, one thing I can say that there is always an incident that causes the writer-synapses inside my brain to start flashing like a fire engine. When that happens, I know I have a story. My latest Amish novel, HIDDEN MERCIES, which will come out April 9–opens with an Amish wedding scene in which the groom has not shown up and the bride is beside herself with humiliation and worry. That scene began to percolate as I sat through three hours of Amish preachers speaking in German during a real-life Amish wedding. Since I could not understand more than two words, I began to wonder if Amish brides ever get left at the altar, and if so, what would happen. The rest of those three hours just flew by. My publisher thought it would be fun for readers to get a peak behind the scenes of HIDDEN MERCIES, and experience with me the […]

January 25, 2013

Aunt Mary

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I received a very special gift this week. My first cousin, Eva Gleim, sent me a picture of her mother, my aunt, reading my first book not long before she passed away. This picture especially grips my heart because back when I thought I would never, ever, make it as a writer, Aunt Mary was one of my biggest encouragers. Mary worked terribly hard. Raising six children, feeding them out of a huge garden, taking care of everything from stray cats to little nieces and nephews, but somehow in the middle of all that work, she still found time to play the piano, sing, dream…..and read love stories. As she once told me when she was well into her eighties, “I like a little kissin’ in a book I’m a-reading.” I’m so grateful that she got to hold the first love story I ever published. Because of her, I’m always mindful to put a little kissin’ in every story.