Sometimes The Most Ordinary Things Are The

One Can Never Had Too Many Librarian Friends.

Ignorant People, Whispering Cruel Rumors, Her Mother Whispered. Pay Them No Mind.

I Wanted To Write About Women And Their Work, And About Valuing The Work We, As Women, Choose To Do. Too Many Women I Knew Disparaged Their Work. Many Working Mothers Thought They Ought To Be Home With Their Children Instead, So They Carried Around Too Much Guilt To Enjoy Much Job Satisfaction.

What I Would Give, I Thought, To Have Been Present As Elizabeth Keckley Measured Mary Lincoln For A New Gown, To Overhear Their Conversations On Topics Significant And Ordinary, To Observe The Lincoln White House From Such An Intimate Perspective. From That Moment, My Interest In Their Remarkable Friendship Was Captivated, And It Never Really Waned.

When I Was Working On My First Novel, 'the Quilter's Apprentice,' I Knew I Wanted To Write About Friendship, Especially Women's Friendship And How Women Use Friendship To Sustain Themselves And Nurture Each Other.