A Visit from One of my Favorite Authors! Welcome, Sharon Lavy

I'm thrilled to have my dear friend Sharon Lavy with me today to share a little of her writing journey with you! PLEASE be sure to comment and leave your email addy for a chance to win her book! Now on to her story:

What is the genre you write in?  Would you explain what it is?
I call it women’s fiction because I care about relationships between women, and families. Romance is a part of life and I include it in my stories  but it is not intended to be the sole focus of the book.

Other’s call my writing German Baptist fiction which would be a sub-genre to Amish fiction.


What is the spiritual message in Farewell For A While?  What can readers expect to get from reading it? 
We need to search for God’s will and not our own. We have to give up some of our pre-conceived ideas to serve him. And most importantly of all…God wants to have a personal relationship with each and every one of us.


Very true! You recently had another book published. Would you take this time to describe it to us? 
I am not sure our readers will really be interested in this one. But since you ask I will tell you. At least it’s one way to make sure all my interviews are not carbon copies. Giggle!

This one is non-fiction. OLD GERMAN BAPTIST DRESS PATTERN… Drafting and fitting.

I’ve had some sisters from a conservative Christian facebook group tell me I should make stock dresses to sell on Etsy.com or something. So Not Happening!  (CB: giggle!)

But I’ve made dress patterns for the sisters in our community for years. Along the way I developed a technique to take measurements and by using the charts I had created, I could make a dress pattern from scratch, not just alter a readymade one.

Of course all bodies are not created equal…and our bodies also shift as the years pass. (CB: love this explanation. :)) So while some fit perfectly the first time, others needed tweaking. I took note as I learned “what those lines mean” and how to correct them.

One thing led to another and I had requests to teach others. This was twenty years ago and I was thankful for desktop publishing. Husband bought me a punch and bind machine and I built the book Drafting The Old German Baptist Dress Pattern including all the charts and instructions I used for drafting patterns.

The only problem was. I used a lot of graphics and my computer continually locked up. So the simple handmade book had to be divided into 14 files.

I kept having sisters want a copy of the book. And I kept saying I really should update the files. The sisters would give me their phone number for when I had the book ready. Sigh.

Well, about a month ago another sister called me. And I said “Yeah, I really need to find those files (by then I wasn’t even sure I still had them on my newer computer) She wanted to give me her phone number. I wrote it down and went back to working on the latest manuscript.

Guess what? My characters would not cooperate.

So I searched the computer found the files in Word Perfect. Tried to convert them to Word with no luck. So it was a painstaking process and I told my husband if I had realized how long it would take to convert and update those files I would have just said I no longer have the book, because in reality I didn’t have a sharable one. And it was a lot of work for a very small nitch audience.

But then, why do I write anyway? To share what God has given me. Even if it helps only one person.

Finally, the book was finished and printed. And my characters have stopped the silent treatment.


Whew, a lot of work. What are you working on now?
I am working on book three of the Sometimes We’re Asked to Forgive the Unforgivable Series. The title is Forgiving the Unforgivable. As with all my novels I find myself learning lessons right along with my characters.


I've loved the first two and eagerly await this one. How and where can readers buy your books?
My Paperback books are available online at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Books A Million.
The ebooks are exclusive to Kindle and are available on Amazon.
Amazon Author Page



Bio (and a picture of her latest fiction book!):
Sharon A. Lavy was born into an Old German Baptist family. This Anabaptist group is often mistaken for Amish.

While Sharon was growing up her father went to medical school at George Washington University. He interned and took his residency at a hospital in Sacramento, California. She inherited her love of books from her father and when she wasn't exploring the hospital where he worked, Sharon spent many hours pouring over his medical books.

When she married, Sharon moved with her husband to a farm in Southwest Ohio where they reared five children.

While she loves to read many genre, her own writing tends to feature medical drama among the Old German Baptist community.


You can find her on the web at:
http://www.sharonalavy.com/
http://www.barndoorbookloft.net/
Author Page on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorSharonALavy?
Twitter:  https://twitter.com/OldOrderTweeter


Thank you, Sharon, for visiting. 
Folks, don't forget to leave your email addy with your comment for a chance to win her book! Farewell for Awhile! 

Blessings!