Today, please welcome Amish author Patrick Craig to the story behind the story.

1. What real Ohio town is the setting for your book?

I set the Apple Creek Dreams series in a real village called Apple Creek in Wayne County, Ohio. It is right in the middle of Ohio Amish Country.

2 . What made you decide to use a real town as opposed to a fictional one?

My editor had asked for an Amish quilting story. When I was doing research on the Amish and quilting, I found out that one of the biggest quilting fairs in the country is held in Dalton, Ohio. As I researched the story, I came across a real event called “The Storm of The Century” that swept into New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio over Thanksgiving week in 1950. The Quilting Fair in Dalton is held that weekend. I looked at the maps of the area around Dalton and found Apple Creek only ten miles away. Right away the name for the series, Apple Creek Dreams, came into my mind. And then step by step the story of Jerusha Springer, the Amish woman who gets caught in a terrible storm on her way to the quilting fair unfolded and A Quilt For Jenna was born. It was too perfect to pass up.

3. Have you visited? What were your impressions of the place?

I have not visited Apple Creek, but I feel like I know the town inside and out. Once, when I was at a writer’s conference, a man walked up to me and introduced himself, just to be friendly. I noticed he was from Ohio so I told him about my book set in Apple Creek. He smiled and said, “I live five miles from there and drive through the village almost every day. He has sent many magazines and newspapers from the area. He dropped me a note one time to let me know that he found A Quilt For Jenna in Der Dutchman restaurant on Kidron Road, one of the main settings for the story. From what I’ve seen from pictures and read about Apple Creek, it is a lovely town. It turns out that my great-great-grandfather, Anthony Rockhill, was born in Independence Ohio, which is less than thirty miles from Apple Creek. So I feel very connected to the area.

4. What were some of the challenges you faced in setting your book in a real town?

The main challenge was making sure that someone who lived there would feel that because of their familiarity with the town, the characters would become real to them and if the reader wanted to, they could go out and visit Jerusha or Bobby or Jenny in their homes. Also, I had to be sure that I didn’t create a character that was too much like a real person who lived in the village, so I had to do a lot of research in that area.

5. Did you fictionalize anything about the town?

I only fictionalized the characters. Everything else, the setting, the street names, the highways, the history of the time I set the story in, all that was very real. I’ve had people write me to say they remember the storm of the century, how much snow fell, and how cold it got.

6. Would you use a real setting again?

I used the town of Paradise, Pennsylvania as a setting for parts of the other tow books in the series and my second series is called, The Paradise Chronicles because it is set there. One of my mentors at a writer’s conference lived in Paradise and gave me some very helpful hints as to what the area really looks like.

Where can readers find me online?

www.patrickecraig.com (Webpage)
https://www.facebook.com/PatrickECraig (Facebook)
https://twitter.com/PatrickECraig (Twitter)
http://tinyurl.com/pn5rzf9 (LinkedIn)

Where can readers purchase the Apple Creek Dreams Series?

http://tinyurl.com/n6sfagg (Amazon)
http://tinyurl.com/ou2kb2y (Barnes & Noble)

The Amish Heiress will be available in August on Amazon, B&N and GoodReads.

Rachel Hershberger’s life in Paradise, Pennsylvania is far from happy. Her papa struggles with a terrible event from the past, and his emotional instability has created an irreparable breach between them. Rachel’s one desire is to leave the Amish way of life and Paradise forever. Then her prayers are answered. Rachel discovers that the strange, key-shaped birthmark above her heart identifies her as the heir to a vast fortune left by her Englischer grandfather, Robert St. Clair. If Rachel will marry a suitable descendent of the St. Clair family, she will inherit an enormous sum of money. But Rachel does not know that behind the scenes is her long-dead grandfather’s sister-in-law, Augusta St. Clair, a vicious woman who will do anything to keep the fortune in her own hands. As the deceptions and intrigues of the St. Clair family bind her in their web, Rachel realizes that she has made a terrible mistake. But has her change of heart come too late?

Patrick E. Craig is a lifelong writer and musician who left a successful songwriting and performance career in the music industry to follow Christ in 1984. He spent the next 26 years as a worship leader, seminar speaker, and pastor in churches, and at retreats, seminars and conferences all across the western United States. After ministering for a number of years in music and worship to a circuit of small churches, he is now concentrating on writing and publishing both fiction and non-fiction books. Patrick and his wife Judy make their home in northern California and are the parents of two adult children and have five grandchildren.

In 2011 he signed a three-book deal with Harvest House Publishers to publish his Apple Creek Dreams series. The books are historical Amish fiction and the first book, A Quilt for Jenna, was released February 1, 2013. The second book in the series, The Road Home, was released September 1, 2013. Book number three, Jenny’s Choice, came out February 1, 2014. His current series is The Paradise Chronicles and the first book, The Amish Heiress, will be out in August, 2015. Patrick is represented by the Steve Laube Agency.