avg_rating: 3.93
name: Viola Shipman
about: ***FRIED GREEN TOMATO MEETS VIRGIN RIVER!***Dear Reader:Welcome! I am the USA Today and internationally bestselling author of fifteen books that have been translated into nearly 25 languages. I write fiction under the pen name, Viola Shipman, as a tribute to my working poor Ozarks grandma, whose memory and love inspire my novels and inspired me to become a writer. My novels are a tribute to family and our elders and meant to inspire hope. My grandma used to say, "Life is as short as one blink of God's eye, but we too often forget what matters most in that blink." As a result, my novels remind readers of what matters most in life: Each other. My new summer novel, FAMOUS IN A SMALL TOWN (yes, like the Miranda Lambert song!), publishes June 13 ***FRIED GREEN TOMATO MEETS VIRGIN RIVER!***Dear Reader:Welcome! I am the USA Today and internationally bestselling author of fifteen books that have been translated into nearly 25 languages. I write fiction under the pen name, Viola Shipman, as a tribute to my working poor Ozarks grandma, whose memory and love inspire my novels and inspired me to become a writer. My novels are a tribute to family and our elders and meant to inspire hope. My grandma used to say, "Life is as short as one blink of God's eye, but we too often forget what matters most in that blink." As a result, my novels remind readers of what matters most in life: Each other. My new summer novel, FAMOUS IN A SMALL TOWN (yes, like the Miranda Lambert song!), publishes June 13 and is available for preorder now. I'm honored that it’s being compared to FRIED GREEN TOMATOES and that Robyn Carr, #1 New York Times Bestselling author of Virgin River, is raving about it. It is a beautiful story about finding the magic that lives within each of us, and I know it will touch your heart. Growing up in the Ozarks, my grandmas were my best friends. I never considered them to be “old,” I thought of them in the same way I did my friends from school. We played board games, we read books, we baked together, we floated in inner tubes down the creek holding hands, we danced to Lawrence Welk, we laughed watching Happy Days. To this day, I’ve always had friends who were much older than me. In fact, some of my dearest friends today are in their 80s. I also have friends much younger than me and am a godparent to teenagers. Like all good friends, we not only support each other through the good and bad, but we also push each other to dream big and be our best selves. We lend each other individual strengths to make the other whole and stronger. We fill in those missing gaps in our souls. We all keep each other young.This novel celebrates intergenerational friendships, and why it’s important in life – and in society – to look at people not simply at face value but within their hearts. This book celebrates the fact that there is no age limit on friendship, new adventures, taking risks and becoming the person you always dreamed of being.This book is also a celebration of women, especially women who have to overcome incredible obstacles and hardships – and often bad men – in their lives to protect their families and come into their own. Much like my grandmas, the women in this novel use ingenuity, hard work, faith, a love of the land and a love for one another to soldier on with grace, determination, resilience and open hearts. This novel, as all my novels do, celebrates the beauty and wonder of Michigan and its bounty along with loads of lore, such as the famed Fata Morgana, illusions that appear over Lake Michigan (are they real or not?). FAMOUS IN A SMALL TOWN place in the storybook (and very real) small town of Good Hart, Michigan, along the storybook (and very real) Tunnel of Trees. This is a breathtaking stretch of road in which the trees grow so dense they canopy the road for miles, choking out the sunlight and offering stunning views at every twist and turn. I also used the very real, very quaint and very historic Good Hart General Store as the foundation to create The Very Cherry General Store. There is no place more I love to visit in the summer or fall than this historic general store (look it up!). 	If you are from Michigan, you begin to understand – in a very short time and especially in summer – that cherries are life. From a stop at a roadside stand to the very real Cherry Festival in Traverse City every year, this fruit is the cherry on top of Michigan. I love all things cherry, and it was a joy to bring them to life – history, recipes, lore – in this novel. This novel started long ago on a summer vacation day in northern Michigan: I went to Cherry Republic, gorged on all things chocolate and cherry, and then – after a glass of wine – tried ...more