Day 10: Meet Kathleen Fuller, Author of The Calling

 Each of the 9 Pioneer Christmas authors were asked 12 questions about herself and her novella (12 Days, 12 Questions. We're good with numbers.) Today's author--Kathleen Fuller--answers those questions and gives us some behind-the-scenes footage of her novella The Calling. (You can read a brief synopsis of The Calling in Monday's post.)

1. What made you write about your period in time?  

I’ve always been fascinated with history, and in researching Unionville Tavern, I realized what a rich past it had. I had a couple of time periods to choose from—the early 19^th century or the time during the Civil War. I chose the early 19^th century, primarily because it marked the beginning of the expansion westward. Northeast Ohio and Western PA/NY were popular destinations for New England pioneers.

2. How is Christmas celebrated in your family and what effect did it have on your writing this story? 

We have a very simple Christmas celebration—usually just my immediate family. We often go to Christmas Eve service, then open presents on Christmas morning and spend the rest of the day relaxing or playing games. When my children were small we would celebrate with a birthday cake for Jesus. But the celebration always centers around family. In creating the Christmas celebration in The Calling, there is a feeling of everyone being part of one family for one night.

 3. What research did you do to authenticate Christmas celebrations in your story? 

I’ve written about the 19^th century before, so I didn’t have to do much research about the celebrations. They were simple, and much like what I do now, very family oriented.

4. When you dreamed up your story idea, what came first, the time period, the story, the location? 

Location—I was very excited to set the story at Unionville Tavern, which is a real tavern in Unionville, OH. Unionville Tavern is currently unused, but there has been an effort to “save” it from further erosion and deterioration. Not only was it a stop on the stagecoach route from Buffalo to Cleveland (like in my story) but during the Civil War it was also a stop on the Underground Railroad.

5. What was the "germ" of your story idea and how did you flesh it out? 

Once I found out about the stagecoach stop, I immediately came up with the idea of a traveler stopping at the tavern on a regular basis. Then the idea blossomed to a story of a man who believed he was called to preach to the western pioneers. Like Jonah, he questions not only himself, but God.

6. Would you like to have been there? 

Definitely. Even now when I drive past the tavern, I imagine what it would have been like back in the day.

7. What aspects of your characters are reflected in yours? 

My characters struggle with doubt, something I also struggle with. I also wonder if I’m following God’s lead in the choices I make in my life. I was able to confront some of those issues as I wrote this story.

8. Have you been to the locations in which your story is set? 

Yes, several times. The tavern is only a few miles from my home.

9. What surprised you the most about your story? 

How the theme is threaded through the story from beginning to end. I rarely know the theme of my books until I’ve finished them, and that was the same with this story. It’s always cool to see how everything comes together.

10. Would you have made a good pioneer? 

I’d like to think so, but then again, I like my comfort zone. Being a pioneer takes a lot of courage and an adventurous spirit. I do enjoy traveling, so I think I would have been one of those people who went west once it got too crowded in the cities.

11. Were any of your ancestors pioneers? If so, where and when? 

Not pioneers but immigrants—both sets of grandparents emigrated from Europe. So they were pioneers in their own way.

12. What spiritual themes did you deliberately incorporate into your story? Which ones did you discover later?

I didn’t deliberately incorporate a theme, unless you call the Jonah story a theme. The theme of family celebration came about at the end of the story—I realized that the people who were stranded on Christmas Eve had come together as a family to celebrate Christ’s birth. 

You can find Kathleen Fuller at kathleenfuller.com.

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12 Days of a Pioneer Christmas--And A Giveaway!

Greetings, friends!

I want to briefly introduce each of the authors who contributed to a Pioneer Christmas and offer a snapshot of each story included in the collection. Then, at the end of it all, offer you a chance (several chances, actually) to win a copy of the collection signed by all 9 authors!

When Barbour Publishing announced they were looking for novellas for A Pioneer Christmas Collection, they had just a few parameters: the story needed to take place between the 1700s to the late 1800s, have a pioneer experience, and celebrate Christmas in a unique dwelling.

            The stories that appear in A Pioneer Christmas Collection certainly met that criterion.

            Ranging in time slots from Shannon McNear’s lead-off Revolutionary War story, to Michelle Ule’s final tale of the 1897 Alaskan gold rush, the novellas sweep across North American locales both familiar and little known.

            Shannon McNear portrays a surprising romance between a militiaman loyal to the Crown hiding after a battle in which his side lost, and a young woman patriot in charge of her siblings when her father goes to fight in Defending Truth. "People were all just struggling to live their lives, and the politics were as upsetting and confusing as today."

 Celebrating Christmas in the cave where her hero was hiding, seemed a terrific idea, and certainly a unique one.

            Kathleen Fuller has often driven past her setting for The Calling: the Unionville Tavern in northeast Ohio. “Once I found out the tavern was a stagecoach shop [in the early 19^th century], I immediately came up with the idea of a traveler stopping at the tavern on a regular basis.”  In The Calling, the traveler is a young man convinced he’s called to preach to those heading west, rather than the settled east. It’s the tavern keeper’s daughter who catches a vision of who he really is.

How many of you have spent Christmas in a tavern?

            Several writers deliberately sought often over-looked times and places.  Anna Urquhart had seldom heard of pioneers traveling by water and examined the opening of the Erie Canal in the 1830’s which led to settlements in Michigan Territory. A Silent Night actually begins in Edinburgh, Scotland and follows the challenges of making a life in the big woods of the upper Midwest.

The drama of a marriage lost and found is played out over Christmas in a barn beside a smoldering cabin.

          A Pony Express Christmas by Margaret Brownley takes readers to a spot most of us think we know—or do we? When a vigorous young woman goes in search of her long-lost express-riding brother, she saves a man from outlaws and drives him to help her search. Set during the Civil War era, A Pony Express Christmas leads us eventually to Chimney Rock and resolution.

What happened to those Pony Express stopping stations and could they make an abandoned spot a holiday site?

            A Christmas Castle by Cynthia Hickey features a mail order bride who arrives in post-Civil War Arizona to discover her intended dead and a small child needing a mother. With outlaws trying to run her off her “inheritance,” she struggles with the help of a handsome neighbor to keep her land. Somehow she’s able to fashion a Christmas celebration in a virtual hole in the ground.

Who knew it could snow in Arizona in the winter? Have you ever had to cram a too-big Christmas tree into a too-small room?

            Lauraine Snelling returns to an area familiar to her readers in The Cowboy’s Angel, set in 1875 Dakota Territory. With her long-overdue husband miles away seeking supplies, a pregnant woman is forced to give birth with a stranger in attendance. Snow socked them into a half-built claim with the farm animals a thin wall away.

Using meager resources in a rough home, a woman finds cause to be thankful. How often 

have you had to “make do” for Christmas?

            Marcia Gruver takes us to sophisticated 1885 New York City in A Badlands Christmas, though we don’t stay there long. Inspired by the adventures of Theodore Roosevelt in the town of Medora, A Badlands Christmas shows the contrasts between festive scenes in the city and a Christmas spent in a dilapidated sod house in the middle of a brutal Dakota Territory winter.

While you may have dealt with the weather outside being frightful on December 25, did you ever live half under the ground?

            Buckskin Bride by Vickie McDonough introduces us to a capable but desperate young woman who is more comfortable in buckskin than calico. She and her sisters are squatters on land the hero won in the 1889 Oklahoma land run. The handsome Irish landowner is kind but dare she trust him when her father warned her to avoid all men? With Christmas approaching, her father missing, and young sister injured, will she and her sisters spend Christmas alone in their tipi?

Have you ever spent Christmas in a tent?

            In The Gold Rush Christmas, Michelle Ule takes brother-sister twins and the boy-next-door to 1897 Skagway, Alaska where they meant to enjoy the season in the newly-constructed Union Church. Searching for a missionary father, however, lands them in a Tlingit cedar long house for a lesson in how to present the gospel in a way anyone could understand.

Who can beat salmon for Christmas dinner, even if eaten off a plank?

            Interested in Christmas spent in novel ways, surprising settings, heroes and heroines filled with love and pluck? Why not try the nine stories found in A Pioneer Christmas Collection? 

Enter my Pioneer Christmas Giveaway!
You can choose any of the option below to enter (tweet, make a comment, "like" my FB page, follow me on Twitter) or you can do them all! The more you do, the more times you're entered into the Giveaway. Just follow the prompts below.

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Come back and visit every day during our 12 Days of Christmas and have another chance each day to enter the Giveaway. Winner will be announced on Tuesday, September 3. See you tomorrow!