Books

When Clark Kent stepped into the glass phone booth, we knew he was about to emerge as Superman. That transformation happened every time.

Then, he used his superpowers to rescue people in distress, leaping over tall buildings in a single bound and flying faster than a speeding bullet. That spinning around in the phone booth was mesmerizing. And,...

We all grow up and have coming-of-age moments. It doesn’t matter when you were born or what age you are now.
You have in common with other people of any age the event of change that is associated with a growth in understanding, maturity, and becoming who you are.
Sometimes these moments of change are referred to as epiphanic turning points. That...

When Clark Kent stepped into the glass phone booth, we knew he was about to emerge as Superman. That transformation happened every time.

Then, he used his superpowers to rescue people in distress, leaping over tall buildings in a single bound and flying faster than a speeding bullet. That spinning around in the phone booth was mesmerizing. And,...

When Eugenia Wren retired from her job teaching air force officers how to write a business memo, she chose to downsize and move to a fish camp because when she looked out from cabin number 6, the rolling river was a better view than what she saw flashing by a computer screen.
A linguist by vocation, Dr. Wren had spent a good portion of her life...

Do you brace for Christmas and the energy it requires to meet the social demands? At the same time do you long for that elusive Christmas spirit that brings refreshment and satisfaction?

You will find amusement and nostalgia in your favorite Christmas movies.
You will enjoy singing along with your favorite characters about a white Christmas and...

Mildred Budge returns in Kingdom Come, a story about setbacks and how to face them.

The fourth novel in the series, Kingdom Come, continues with the stories of Mildred, Fran, Winston, Janie, and Chase.
In this story, Mildred’s Cloverdale bungalow is crowded.
Her best friend Fran observes, “For a single woman, Mildred, your quiver is getting very...

From the author of the popular Mildred Budge church lady books comes a brand-new spin-off series featuring the friends of Mildred Budge and how they see the same world Miss Budge inhabits—and her, too.

In Belle, the first book in the new series, friends of Mildred Budge see life in Cloverdale through the eyes of Belle Deerborn.
Belle Deerborn...

Always a bride’s maid--never a bride. That’s part of the story of the life of Mildred Budge in this third novel in the series.

But there is more to know about this Sunday School teacher who has been recruited to be a maid of honor for her good friend’s wedding.

As someone who has routinely had to muzzle herself at weddings by not calling out when...

From the writer of the popular Mildred Budge series comes a collection of 11 easy-to-give Holiday Small Talks for Activity Directors or groups. Written by a long-time member of a speakers’ bureau, these informative and entertaining Small Talks are tied to classic Christmas and New Year’s themes. Here’s an excerpt from the Introduction:When...

When my claustrophobic sister Julie Ann and her down-in-the-back husband Jody were trapped on a stalled elevator in a posh hotel, they were not alone in their distress. Two young male execs were with them. As soon as the elevator lurched heart-stoppingly close to a place near a floor level, the two young men were able to wedge open the elevator...

I was having dinner at Bucky’s bar at the Grand Hotel in Point Clear, Alabama, when I saw an older distinguished man sipping a martini and staring through the back window at the horizon of the Gulf of Mexico as the sun set.

And I knew him—not his name or the name of the woman he was missing and privately toasting with his small sips of that...

“Don’t you ever want to run away from Christmas?”
Mildred Budge’s answer to Dixie was immediate and truthful.
“Yes, yes, yes,” Mildred said with conviction.
She couldn’t stop saying yes, though the very idea that a good church lady would want to run away from the occasion during the year that marked the birth of Jesus-- the reason for the season...

From the author of the popular Mildred Budge series comes a new kind of love story about a different kind of Southern church lady.
Franklin Lovejoy is an attractive, eligible widower, and the church is full of ladies who want to sit beside him. They crawl over pews and one another to get to him. For some it is a form of Sunday morning...

These love stories have other names.
Mothering.
Fathering.
Befriending.
Comforting.
Helping.
And, yes, holding on while letting go.
For loving others is often as much about letting go as holding on—and never too tightly.
If you are looking for a self-help book about caregiving, this isn’t it.
But if you are interested in a thoughtful exploration of...

What do church ladies really think?
Composed and often so quiet as to be thought invisible, church ladies have secret powers to change the world.
What are those special powers?
They love well.
They give well.
They can often cook!
And.... they play an essential role in a great rescue operation for mankind.
For although they appear to have Ninja...

Each Christmas retired chemistry teacher Edwina Bopp makes her newest invention of miracle fudge as a fundraiser for missions in her small Southern town Fountain City.


Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, the good lady cooks through the night and then gives the candy away to the fudge-hungry group of people who know this year’s newest recipe is...

Written for school children (4-6 grades), this story of Nat King Cole’s life highlights his impact on the development of music in America and, consequently, the world. He was a distinctive talent in jazz but later became a major voice in pop music.

When the car sailed over the embankment carrying the four members of the pulpit committee, Mildred Budge called out, “Jesus saves.”


The others heard it, but they were also experiencing their own quick flashes of insight.
Liz, a serial widow, felt unsatisfied with her life. She wanted more. Sailing toward her death, she still did.
Sam, who had...

From the author of Lovejoy and Blessed comes a series about church ladies of the South. After reading this first novel in the series, fans of Southern fiction write, “I want to live next door to Mildred Budge.”

A retired school teacher, Mildred Budge just wants to live a quiet life in her hometown of Cloverdale. But retirement does not mean she...

There is a surprising and very freeing future for caregivers after Alzheimer’s disease runs its course and leaves the building where you have been trying to make a home. The house will never be the same. Your heart will never feel the same. But in spite of its bad reputation, living with Al isn’t all about heartbreak.

If you are a current...

I grew up in a family where we wrote one another love letters. We put them on pillows, in lunch bags, by bedsides.
So it was only natural that when my niece Katie asked me to compile some family recipes for her upon the occasion of her marriage that I would place those recipes alongside all the love letters I had been wanting to write and had...

When a church lady falls in love, she falls hard.
Sometimes she lands on her knees.
Miss Budge does as she moves quietly and powerfully through her daily life in Old Cloverdale, where F. Scott Fitzgerald once courted Zelda, and two miles away Nat King Cole was born.
Fitzgerald wrote about love. Nat Cole sang about love, and Mildred Budge knows...

As more and more people are discovering, Alzheimer’s disease is the worst kind of thief. Over time, it robs those who suffer from it of the treasure of their memories and the sharpness of their minds. In “The Long Good Night” Daphne Simpkins chronicles the slow, sometimes heartbreaking decline of her father from the disease, but also contradicts...