Keowee Valley ebook only $0.99 now through September 30th

Hi, all! Looking for something to read this Fall … or, perhaps, while you wait for my new historical novel, THE MINIATURIST’S ASSISTANT, to be released? My first historical novel, Keowee Valley, is on sale now through Sept. 30th for only $0.99.

Available via ebook at Amazon, Apple Books, and more!

Sure hope y’all enjoy it. Happy Fall reading!

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I Take Heart – September Issue, 2023

Hi, all! The September issue of my newsletter, I Take Heart, is available now. It’s full of the books, movies, TV shows, podcasts, and music I’ve enjoyed over the past two months.

To subscribe and read, click here (or at the Newsletter tab, above). By doing so you’ll be the first to learn about new books and writing, events, and more. I only post once per month.

And have a fantastic Labor Day weekend!

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I Take Heart: June 2023 newsletter

Hi, all!

My June newsletter is out now, and it’s full of the books/TV shows/podcasts I’ve been enjoying so far this summer, a little home DIY, news, thoughts on friendship, and more.

One of the nicest things anyone can do for an author is to subscribe to their newsletter. I try to keep mine short and sweet, I only publish once per month, and I’ll never share your email address with anyone.

To subscribe, click on the “Newsletter” tab above and fill out the form. You can choose how much or little you hear from me.

So many thanks, and the happiest of Junes to you and yours!

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Book News: A new historical novel from Katherine Scott Crawford

I’m thrilled to announce that my new novel, THE MINIATURIST’S ASSISTANT, will be published by Regal House Publishing in May 2025!

So very grateful to my amazing literary agent, Joelle Delbourgo, for loving this book and working for its place in the world. I cannot wait for y’all to read it!

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My Conversation with Jennifer McGaha

Hi, friends!

If you missed the Zoom conversation between memoirist and outdoorswoman Jennifer McGaha and me about her wonderful new memoir, Bushwhacking: How to Get Lost in the Woods and Write Your Way Out you can watch here. It’s free, and available on the Trinity University Press Facebook page.

We had a ball talking about all aspects of the writing life, our time as adjunct professors sharing the same office, bears on the trail, moments of wonder, MFA programs (we both attended the Vermont College of Fine Arts’s MFA in Writing program), mentors, and more.

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Feb. 1 at 7:00 PM EST – Jennifer McGaha and I discuss “Bushwhacking” – free & online

Hi, friends: Note the time change to 7:00 PM EST for my conversation on Zoom with my friend, the memoirist Jennifer McGaha, author of Bushwhacking: How to Get Lost in the Woods and Write Your Way Out–and the award-winning Flat Broke With Two Goats. The event is free, online, and open to the public! Hope to see you all there!

More info here.

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Jennifer McGaha in Conversation with Katherine Scott Crawford

I’m delighted to announce that on Wednesday, February 1 at 6:00 PM, I’ll be in (Zoom) conversation with my friend, fellow Brevardian, outdoorswoman, author, Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA in Writing alum, and warrior of the adjunct professor trenches: the memoirist Jennifer McGaha.

The event is free and open to all, hosted by Trinity University Press.

Y’all join us; it’s going to be fun!

Register here bit.ly/3QbouoN.

“Jennifer McGaha, author of Bushwhacking: How to Get Lost in the Woods and Write Your Way Out, in conversation with writer Katherine Crawford. Part writing memoir, part nature memoir, and part meditation on a life well lived, Bushwhacking draws on McGaha’s experiences running, hiking, biking, paddling, and getting lost across the Appalachian Mountains of western North Carolina to offer readers encouragement and practical suggestions to accompany them on their writing and life journeys. Free and online.”

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South to America wins National Book Award

That Imani Perry’s South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation just won the National Book Award is no surprise.

It kept me up at night for the weeks I read it, stirring, waking, honoring, and battling with every part of my Southern soul. My American being. My national identity, and my humanity. Which means, to me as a reader and writer both, that because it did this for and to me, it does this outward from me. I underlined, bracketed, starred, exclamation-pointed so many places in this book that when I lend it to friends it will annoy folks. And I can’t begin to choose one or two lines to quote here, because to say Perry mines the depths is too easy; it’d be better to say she takes a Hubble telescope to the galaxy of every bit of the story.

But here are some, because they are hers:

“The only real difference between a farm and a plantation is how it’s used and who uses it, nothing else.”

“Southerners are, generally speaking, both exacting in their judgment and good at alcohol.”

“We tend to think moments of pain provide reckoning. But pleasure might tell us even more. What shows up in the abandon of delight tells us a great deal about who we are, naked.”

“Staying alive on the grounds of your ancestors’ murder and abuse is no small matter. It requires a living witness to their alchemy. Go into a church, find the old woman singing, listen to how her voice, even if cracking, takes up much more space than that to which she has been resigned.”

Read this book.

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What I’m reading — and loving! — right now: Beautiful Writers by Linda Sivertsen

The book publishing business is kind of a like a mythological beast: sometimes terrifying, sometimes beautiful, always layered. I know from personal experience that the best thing you can do when you love a book is to talk about it–to share as far and wide as you can. Recently, I read, and adored, Beautiful Writers: A Journey of Big Dreams & Messy Manuscripts — with Tricks of the Trade from Bestselling Authors by Linda Sivertsen. Here’s what I posted about it on social media:

This bright, beautifully real, laugh-out loud funny, relentlessly optimistic (heavy on the mystic), gift of a writer’s book has been bringing me an unexpected–and insanely necessary–jolt of joy in my daily reading, since the moment I picked it up. Writers, get your copies or put it on your wish lists. People of writers, it will make for a perfect gift.

I didn’t know what to expect when I pre-ordered. I came to Linda Siversten’s popular Beautiful Writers podcast late, during the pandemic, and didn’t know a thing about her. Listening to interviews with writers both known and (to me) unknown was a salve during an uncertain time. And just so much damn fun, because they laugh a lot and tell so many great stories! The book is MORE. Even authors, celebrities, leaders, and creatives I thought I knew, like Elizabeth Gilbert, Terry McMillan, Ann Patchett, Abby Wambach, Patricia Cornwell, share things in these pages I’ve never heard or read from them before–about writing, life, and being a creative in the world.

Sivertsen’s voice throughout as she shares her beautiful and messy life felt so familiar to me as a mom with young kids–the bumps in the roads of friendships and partnerships, the yearning for connection, the unceasing urge to heal and connect to the earth, the glorious and brutal challenge of motherhood. It’s all there, and done with such a bright, light hand you feel like you’ve been to a fabulous group yoga class where you not only found a bit of inner peace, you also dissolved into giggles on your mat because somebody cracked a joke under their breath.

Bonus: Beautiful Writers is printed sustainably.

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I Take Heart – September 2022

Hi, all! To read about what’s been going on in my world–books, home renovation, podcasts, ponderings, and more-click the “Newsletter” tab above or here.

Sure hope y’all are well and enjoying the end of summer!

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