The Quilt Fiction Podcast

Greetings from the shortest day of the year here in the northern hemisphere! If you’re like me, you’re less focused on the winter solstice and more on your long to-do list. The holidays came on fast this year!I’m pleased to announce that this year’s Friendship Album Christmas story is now available via the Quilt Fiction podcast! This year’s story, “Winter Stars,” finds Florence Grangerfield working on a Christmas quilt for sister-in-law Emmeline. When an unexpected Christmas card arrives, she’s taken back to 1916, the year she was 10 and committed a crime she’s never forgiven herself for. When you’re a child (as Florence is in 1916), it’s easy to envy a friend whose family seems so much happier than your own. “Winter Stars” is a story about discovering that other people’s lives are as layered as our own. It’s also a story about forgiveness — both being forgiven and forgiving yourself for past transgressions. This is a good time of year to lean into that. As I’m doing my Christmas baking this weekend, I’ll be watching “A Christmas Carol” (my favorite version stars George C. Scott as Scrooge). If Ebenezer Scrooge can be redeemed, maybe — just maybe — so can I.I’m very pleased to report that my dear friend Patty Dudek of Elm Street Quilts has designed a beautiful “Winter Stars” block pattern for Quilt Fiction listeners. Just go to quiltfiction.com to claim your copy!I hope you enjoy this year’s story. If you want more quilt fiction in your life, please explore the website. There’s lots of free content available, and if that’s not enough, you can always subscribe to the Quilt Fiction Story Guild and get stories in your inbox nearly every week. Thanks as always for listening!  I’m wishing you the happiest of holiday seasons.xoFrances

Tune into the May episode of Quilt Fiction to listen to an interview with one of the queens of quilt fiction, the fabulous Marie Bostwick!Marie Bostwick!If you’ve listened to this month’s episode, you know what an utter delight Marie is! Have you read her two newest novels yet? You’ll love Esme Cahill Fails Spectacularly and The Restoration of Celia FairchildFor more about Marie and her books, visit her website. Check out Marie’s First interview with Quilt Fiction!Interview Spoiler Alert! Spoiler alert: around sixteen minutes into the interview, we’re talking about the way a story you’re working on can surprise you. Something happens that you weren’t expecting at all. Marie talks about a character in A Thread So Thin, one of the Cobbled Street Court series, and she accidentally reveals an important plot point. So, if you haven’t read the book yet and don’t want to know what happens, go ahead and fast forward through that part of the interview!To keep up with Marie’s latest news and sample her delicious recipes, sign up for her newsletters! Our May Sponsor and Giveaway!Big thanks to Maywood Studio for sponsoring the May 2024 episode of the Quilt Fiction podcast. Maywood Studio is a wholesale textile manufacturer and leading fabric supplier for the quilting and craft industry, and these fine folks are providing an amazing treat for one lucky listener this month: a 21-piece fat quarter bundle. Franny’s Flowers is a cheerful fabric collection inspired by vintage printed cotton feed sacks from the 1930s and 40s. Reminiscent of farm life and country living, these designs honor the memory of a long-time employee who was passionate about collecting period fabrics. A percentage of the proceeds from fabric sales are donated to the American Cancer Society. The Franny’s Flowers Quilt is available to view...

In this month’s episode, I’m sharing a work-in-progress with you, From the Homefront Diaries of Lorraine Shatterbuck. I seem to be writing a lot in diary form lately–I’m also writing Diary of a Mad Quilter, a contemporary story about an avid quilter.  Both of these diaries, by the way, are available to read for free on the Quilt Fiction website. You can listen to the audio version of Diary of a Mad Quilter by joining the Quilt Fiction Story Guild for as low as $6 a month. We’ve got three great sponsors for today’s episode: Suzie Quilts, Fat Quarter Shop and Denyse Schmidt Quilts! Our sponsors have provided some really nice things for this month’s giveaway. We’re doing two giveaway bundles for March–the first one includes three patterns of your choice from the Suzie Quilts pattern shop plus a Hip Hop Hooray  Layer Cake from Fat Quarter Shop. The second giveaway bundle is a year-long membership in Denyse Schmidt’s Patchwork Panel Club, and this one is big–we’re talking a $165 value! Among other things, you’ll get four different fabric panels delivered to you throughout 2024. Each panel features nine mix-and-match fabric designs from the DSQ fabric archives printed on luxuriously soft, high-density quilting cotton and is over two yards of fabric.March 2024 Block of the MonthThe March 2024 Block of the Month is the Stars of Stripes block first published in Aunt Martha’s Work Basket and reprinted in newspapers across the country beginning in 1941. Stars of Stripes block March Book of the MonthThe Quilt by Gary Paulsen, which is one in a trilogy of books that are based on Paulsen’s grandmother. The main character in The Quilt is an unnamed  six-year-old boy, but this isn’t a sweet and cozy story. Even though the narrator is very young, this is a book for older, more mature readers. I think a thoughtful sixth grader might get a lot from it, and mature 7th and 8th graders even more so. In a way, I think the readers who might get the most from this are adult women. The Quilt takes place during that time Paulsen lived in Northern Minnesota when he was a young boy. In the story, he travels with his grandmother to a remote farm, where a much older cousin of his is close to giving birth. Her husband is fighting in the war, and she’s tending to the farm by herself. Shortly after the boy and his grandmother arrive, the cousin, Kristina, goes into labor. With that,, the women of the community arrive. The labor is long, and while the women wait, they work on a quilt together. It's a quilt made up of scraps, each one telling a story about a family member’s life, and the women tell the boy all the stories that the quilt contains.

This week, we spend time with Emmeline Grangerfield as a young bride finding her way in Milton Falls. Yes, it’s the annual Friendship Album Christmas story! Enjoy!Be sure to download your free "December Star" quilt block pattern.

Host Frances O'Roark Dowell reads her short story, "Persimmon Moon," and discusses the importance of world-building to fiction writers. Plus, a special giveaway for February over at QuiltFiction.com.

In “Dorothy’s Christmas Star,” Dorothy Johnson approves of her daughter’s friendship with a group of girls from prominent families, but then begins to worry that young Hannah has grown ashamed of where she comes from. When Dorothy is left out of an important event, she decides to take matters into her own hands — only to be surprised by the results.Hello and happy holidays!If you’re looking for the free pattern and story download, you’ve come to the right place! I love the star block designed by Patty Dudek especially for this year’s Christmas story, and I know you’ll love it too! If you want to know more about the Quilt Fiction Story Guild, you’ve also come to the right place! Just click here to find out how to become a member!I talked about the Story Guild at the beginning of the podcast, but let’s take a minute review how much fun it’s going to be, shall we?  First of all, we get to spend time with our favorite quilters,  the ladies of the  Milton Falls Wednesday Quilting Bee! We’ve got two new members on board, Edwina Baldwin and Eula’s daughter-in-law, Elise Baker, and you know how adding new people to the mix always complicates things. Yes, dears, there are some surprises in store!Like Friendship Album, 1933, Friendship Album, 1934: Forget-Me-Not is a work-in-progress. I’ve written ten chapters so far and hope to have at least five more chapters done before Episode One drops on New Year’s Eve. By joining the Story Guild, you’ll be supporting me as I write. That’s right. you’ll be a patron of the arts, and this artist/writer greatly appreciates it!I’m also super excited to share chapters from another WIP, Diary of a Mad Quilter. I’ve loved creating the modern day Milton Falls and my favorite new family, the Fetzers. Beginning in January, I’ll be sharing weekly excerpts from Marnie Fetzer’s diaries. As the title suggests, there’s a lot of humor in Marnie’s story, and I  hope you’ll enjoy spending time with the newest addition to the Milton Falls quilting roster. If you’re here, then you’re a story lover, so you’ll be glad to know that by joining the Story Guild, you’ll get even more Milton Falls quilting stories in your inbox. I’ve got a bunch of new stories in the hopper, including a Dorothy story from 1902, and a contemporary story that features Emmeline’s granddaughters(!). Expect surprise announcements of new audio stories and e-stories for you to download, one more way of saying thanks for your support!As I mentioned on the podcast, we’ve got special gifts for everyone who joins in December. First, we’ll mail you a set of EIGHT holiday postcards as soon as you join–take a look at the cards on the website; they’re absolutely darling! Second, for joining the Quilt Fiction Story Guild this month, you’ll receive a free downloadable Friendship Album, 1933 audiobook with updated chapters, a $39.95 value. Please note, Friendship Album 1933 is no longer available on the free Quilt Fiction podcast. It will be available for sale in our Etsy store in 2023, but if you join the Story Guild in December, you’ll get it for free!  I hope you’ll consider joining the Story Guild. We’ll do everything we can to make sure you’re getting a whole lot of great stuff in return for your support! Finally, a little about this year’s Christmas story.“Dorothy’s Christmas Star” is set in 1918. If you’re looking for information about everyday life in the US at the turn of the 20th century, most of what you’ll find concerns white communities. This is a problem if you’re writing fiction about a black family and want to get all the details right.  However, I’m fortunate to live in Durham, NC, home of a historic black neighborhood known as Hayti, about which a great deal has been written. Hayti was founded as...