Author Allie Pleiter & A WWI Heroine
My guest today is author Allie Pleiter. Her latest book Homefront Hero debuts this month. As you may recall, Allie is a champion knitter and will be asking a question about crafting in your life.
Also remember that in May, all the giveaways are collected into one big gift basket at the end of the month. So leave a comment to be entered into the drawing! Here’s Allie:
“World War I women were as strong as they come. The whole culture was changing for women during that time. New possibilities were opening up, the vote was on the horizon, and the fairer sex was discovering just how fierce she could be.
As a modern woman, I found it very satisfying to write about a young woman discovering her worth in 1918. I never knew any of my grandparents, so this was my way of peering back into what would have been their world. Turn of the century women fed the souls of the women who would feed mine.
When I uncovered the Red Cross sock knitting campaign during the war, it was like I felt a length of yarn stretching from my needles back to theirs. I, too, use my knitting to serve–I knit prayer shawls that our church gives to those in need of comfort or healing–and have drawn strength from my own craft in times of crisis. I spend countless hours knitting in my son’s hospital rooms and treatment centers. I–like my heroine Leanne–find I can draw peace from the calm of stitching, can let the motions fill my stock of strength while I pray or talk or even teach someone else the craft I love so well.
Like my heroine Leanne, there’s a bond greater than stitching between myself and the women who knit with me. Like the sewing circles of the past, my knitting groups (for I have several) gather friends around me so that I’m never doing life alone. Many of us draw our strength from faith, but we never fail to draw strength from each other.
Can a man–especially an arrogant, self-assured war hero–learn the lessons I believe knitting teaches me? That was the fun of HOMEFRONT HERO; taking a decorated war hero and forcing him to do something he sees as weak. Something he discounts as “the territory of grandmothers.” The fact that he discovers just how strong Leanne truly is? Well, that’s what makes a great story, isn’t it? I find God is especially good at taking those we call “heroes” and forcing them to learn a whole new kind of bravery. David, Moses, Joseph–none of them knit, but they’d line up behind Captain John Gallows to tell you God’s heroism is as true as it can be.
Back cover copy:
Dashing and valiantly wounded, Captain John Gallows could have stepped straight out of an army recruitment poster. Leanne Sample can’t help being impressed—although the lovely Red Cross nurse tries to hide it. She knows better than to get attached to the daring captain who is only home to heal and help rally support for the war’s final push. As soon as he’s well enough, he’ll rush back to Europe, back to war—and far away from South Carolina and Leanne. But when an epidemic strikes close to home, John comes to realize what it truly means to be a hero—Leanne’s hero.”–Allie
Author Bio:
An avid knitter, coffee junkie, and devoted chocoholic, Allie Pleiter writes both fiction and non-fiction. The enthusiastic but slightly untidy mother of two, Allie spends her days writing books, buying yarn, and finding new ways to avoid housework. Allie hails from Connecticut, moved to the midwest to attend Northwestern University, and currently lives outside Chicago, Illinois. The “dare from a friend” to begin writing has produced two parenting books, fourteen novels, and various national speaking engagements on faith, women’s issues, and writing. Visit her website at www.alliepleiter.com or her knitting blog at www.DestiKNITions.blogspot.com
Here’s Allie’s question: If you love a craft, what friendships has it brought you?”–Allie
