Shannon here: Christmas is just around the corner. Gail Kittleson shares insight into her latest collaboration with 4 other authors on a Historical Romance collection of 18 Christmas stories set in Texas Hill Country. Comment or answer the question in this post to enter the drawing for an e-file copy of Gail’s Historical Romance, Land that I Love. Deadline: Oct 15th, 11:59 pm central time. Here’s Gail:
Collaborating Joys by Gail Kittleson:
The World War II era has become my normal fiction-writing hang-out. Thus, the first definition that comes to my mind for collaborator on any given day might contain a negative connotation.
1845 “to work with another or others,” a back-formation from collaborator modeled on French collaborer or directly from Late Latin collaboratus, past participle of collaborare. Given a bad sense in World War II: “Cooperate traitorously with an occupying enemy.”
https://www.etymonline.com/word/collaborate
But during the past year, I’ve discovered joy in working with the co-author of A Hill Country Christmas Hope for Hardscrabble Times. Several times, other authors have joined me on projects, and I’ve always enjoyed the experience, but this one outshines them all!
Having a writing partner with a degree in architecture has added to the depth of my writing detail. Investigating the building process itself provides historical specifics, and what a gift when someone notes these at a glance!
My setting, a geographical area unfamiliar to me when I first met my writing friend, Lynn, led to so many questions. But she grew up in Texas Hill Country and has been writing about it for decades.
What a treasure I found in her knowledge of this area’s land forms, culture, and perspectives. After our tour of the ghost town where my British hero for Land That I Love would settle just before World War II, my head fairly burst with information.
The area’s old stone houses provided hints about the original German settlers. So much to contemplate—their use of what lay at hand, their learned skill of chiseling homes out of rock, their understanding of the topography.
And as we discussed all of this, an idea formed. With so many small Hill Country communities founded by German pioneers, why not set a collection of Christmas stories in as many of them as possible?
Our conjectures and networking produced a wealth of possibilities, including three “born storytellers” ready to write! So it was that A Hill Country Christmas came into being.
Now that the book has released and we’ve enjoyed an exciting launch tour to many towns where our historical fiction entries took place, we’re about to lean back in our armchairs with a cup of tea and relax.
Or did we hear somebody say, “Hey! How about compiling a 2023 version?”
Through the tumult of history, the hope of Christmas has sustained many a weary soul, and the Texas Hill Country has known its share of tumult. A Hill Country Christmas compiles heartwarming tales from the region—some true, some fictional.
Our history teaches us how to face difficult times. These stories will encourage and delight modern-day readers.
Question for Readers: Where is your favorite place to spend Christmas? Why?
About Gail: Texas Hill Country won this author’s heart as she researched her novel, Land That I Love. The World War II era, when faith, work, and family anchored our lives, has become Gail’s second home. Her fourteen historical and literary fiction titles feature make-do characters growing stronger through facing adversity.
A former ESL and college writing instructor who came late to professional writing, Gail loves encouraging other authors through workshops and retreats. In North Iowa, she and her retired Army Chaplain husband enjoy grandchildren, gardening and research. Learn more & connect:
About the book – A Hill Country Christmas – Hope for Hardscrabble Times is a collection of
18 holiday stories from every corner of the Texas Hill Country. Five authors make history come alive in these multi-cultural Christmas stories about life and death, humor and sadness, heartache and romance, the blessings of Christmas and the triumph of the human spirit.
The holiday season isn’t always easy, but these regional stories are filled with inspiration from Christmases Past that offer hope for the difficult times we live in today.
- After surviving the Siege of Bexar in December 1835, Deaf Smith and his son-in-law Hendrick Arnold prepare their family for Santa Anna’s reprisal while attempting to celebrate Las Posadas one last time in their San Antonio home.
- Despite a harrowing journey across 5000 miles of ocean and frontier, two Sisters of Divine Providence find reason to give thanks for the blessings of Christmas 1868 at a mission school in Castroville.
- Fiery circuit-riding preacher Andrew Jackson Potter stirs Uvalde pioneers with an 1872 visit that erupts to cause surprising results.
- An Indian attack on Christmas Eve 1876 brings tragedy to a family in Denman (Junction), but even a difficult Christmas offers hope.
- Unaware that a Great War looms just ahead, two sisters seek vastly different objectives when student pilots from Stinson School of Flying make a chivaree wedding reception in Kendalia the social event of the 1916.
- When the Spanish Influenza epidemic threatens Boerne while the town’s only physician is serving in World War I France, Sheriff Joe Saunders institutes a lockdown and pays a personal price for “cancelling Christmas.”
- By Christmas 1918, World War I is over, but soldiers are still in Europe awaiting Armistice agreements. A flash flood in Comfort, Texas compels one family to set aside their own grief and concerns to find “room in the inn” for a stranded stranger.
- In the midst of the Great Depression, a young widow struggles to give her daughter a happy Christmas and discovers unexpected joy in Menard, Texas.
- Beset by needs on every hand, a Gatesville physician working with World War II veterans at Waco’s VA hospital confronts his own lingering PTSD and encounters new possibilities for life and love.
- With two brothers deployed in WWII, a Kerrville teen longing to enter the Schreiner Institute’s military program must finds other ways to serve at home in a heartwarming 1943 holiday story.
- In an old-fashioned Christmas story reminiscent of Earl Hamner’s stories about the Waltons, war’s consequences teach one Fredericksburg boy that friends and family are life’s most important gifts.
- Hilarity ensues when two sisters take jobs to help their family make ends meet and are presented with opportunities they never dreamed of in Cherry Springs, Texas.
- Preparing to leave for college, a Mason youth reflects on Christmases past and the sacrifices his parents made to assure his future.
- A San Marcos policeman volunteering as a Blue Santa builds bridges of goodwill with the family of a former criminal.
- A recent immigrant accepts the challenge to learn German as well as English, embracing her adopted New Braunfels community as new traditions become her own.
- Worlds collide when an event planner for Austin’s elite finds common ground with a Wimberley cedar chopper who exemplifies “goodwill to all.”
Giveaway
A variety of Christmas delights can be found in every town, era, and culture in the Texas Hill Country!
Gail coauthored the collection with Lynn Dean, Michael Barr, Gina Lister, & Shannon McFarland
Bestselling author Gail Kittleson and award-winning author Lynn Dean will speak September 28-October 5 in several Hill Country towns featured in their upcoming Christmas collection, A Hill Country Christmas-Hope for Hardscrabble Times, availabe in ebook format and trade paperback from Wordsworth Publishing, an imprint of Discover Texas History.
My favorite place to spend Christmas is at my parent’s with my whole family.
Reaaon: because I love being there with family
I have a winner! Mark Buzard won the drawing. I appreciate Gail for being my guest and everyone else who stopped by.
I love spending Christmas at home because home is where the heart is!
I love spending Christmas at home with family.
Glad to have you here, Gail. I like spending Christmas at home. We once traveled to see family and drove home on Christmas Eve. I don’t want to ever do that again. It was nice to see long-distance family during the season, but there’s no place like home.
I like spending time with my family bat Christmas time especially going to my grandma and grandpas house and being with my aunts uncles and cousins.Then on Christmas Eve we just have all my sibblings over and there wife’s and children over.