Writers are a restless, nosy, and distractible breed. On top of that they often hear other people's voices in their heads. One day a new voice began a series of monologues in mine. Aggie Sloan-Wilcox was new to the small Ohio town of Emerald Springs, and she wasn't sure she wanted to be there. Not only that, Aggie wasn't all that sure she liked being the wife of a minister, particularly when the most influential woman in her husband's congregation was trying to have him fired. Add two precocious young daughters, a drafty barn of a parsonage and a serious identity crisis. Aggie had a lot to say.

For fun–just for fun–I began to jot down a few of Aggie's thoughts.
"You think you've seen stuff," Aggie asked me, "did you ever find a dead body on the parsonage front porch?" And, of course, I had to tell her, with true gratitude, no. Before long I was hooked and had to know the full story. Blessed is the Busybody and the Ministry is Murder series are the result.

My husband is a minister, but I haven't modeled Aggie's family on my own, plus my husband serves a large, urban church on the East Coast. But Aggie and I share a sense of humor and an occasional flash of rebellion. Among other things, Aggie hyphenates her name to be certain she has at least a smidgen of identity outside her marriage and the church. And me? That’s easy. I became a novelist.