Amy’s Amish series includes the Kauffman Amish Bakery Series and the Hearts of the Lancaster Grand Hotel Series. Her books have achieved the Christian Fiction bestseller lists, including the CBA (Christian Book Association) bestseller list and the ECPA (Evangelical Christian Publishers Association) bestseller list. Amy signed with the Seymour Agency in 2006 and states her dreams came true in 2007 when she sold her first book, A Gift of Grace.

Tracy:   Hey there. Welcome to another episode of Buggy Talk. I'm your host, Tracy Fredrychowski. And this is podcast Episode 19.

Each week, I bring you the story behind the stories, along with the storytellers. For this week's episode, we have Amy Clipston onboard.

Amy’s Amish series includes the Kauffman Amish Bakery Series and the Hearts of the Lancaster Grand Hotel Series. Her books have achieved the Christian Fiction bestseller lists, including the CBA (Christian Book Association) bestseller list and the ECPA (Evangelical Christian Publishers Association) bestseller list. Amy signed with the Seymour Agency in 2006 and states her dreams came true in 2007 when she sold her first book, A Gift of Grace.

Hello, Amy. And thank you for joining us. How are you today?

Amy: Doing great. Thank you for having me. Oh, you're very welcome. You know, you have an incredible lineup of Amish books and I for one have enjoyed many of them over the years. 

And I have to tell you, I've been looking forward to our interview all week. You have a new book out entitled An Amish Singing, but before we talk about that new release, I like to take our listeners for an inside look at some of their favorite authors writing career. So can I pick your brain for a few minutes?

Amy: Absolutely.

Questions asked to Amy:

• What are the essential elements of good writing?
• Tell us what comes first for you, the plot, or the characters? 
• When did you first consider yourself a writer? 
• Tell us what your writing space looks like. 

Tracy: That moves us right into your latest release, which is An Amish Singing. I love how you broke it down into four parts that match up with four of my favorite hymns. I love that. So would you please tell us how you went about picking those particular four songs and please go ahead and share them with our listeners and just tell us a little bit about this new book.

Amy: It is a novella collection with four stories that intertwine about four young couples. The first story is called Hymn of Praise. The first story is about a young woman named Sharon and her friend, Jay. And she decides that she wants her friends to get together, to sing for people in the community who are either down on their luck, having hard time, maybe a family member is ill or they're dealing with grief. And then she and her mother hosts meals in their home for tourists. 

Listen to the whole podcast for Amy’s in-depth description of An Amish Singing.

• What is the key theme or the message in the book that you want your readers to get from it? 

Tracy: We have something really special for our listeners today. They are going to hear your whole first chapter.

Reading from An Amish Singing.

• So I have to ask what's next for Amy. Are you working on anything at the present you'd like to share with your readers about?

Tracy: Amy, I want to thank you so much for spending time with us this wee