p.s. there will also be cookies!
p.p.s. Ewe 2 Yarn is at 308 S. College, Waxahachie, TX, between Gingerbread Antiques and The Dove’s Nest

The post Launch Party! appeared first on Sharon J Mondragon.

The release of the sequel to The Unlikely Yarn of the Dragon Lady,The Tangled Tale of the Woolgathering Cast-offs is just two months away! It’s time to put together a launch team to help get the word out. A launch team is a group of people who create interest and excitement about an upcoming book via social media. The team can really get a book off to a great start. I’d love to have you join me and my launch team manager, Tammy Karasek (AKA The Launch Team Geek) in letting lots of people know about the book. If you’d like to do this, please fill out the application below. We’ll let you know by December 3 if you’ve been selected to be on the team!

Launch Team Application

The post Help Get the Word Out (and have fun doing it)! appeared first on Sharon J Mondragon.

I’m happy to announce that the next book in the Purls and Prayers series now has a title, a cover, and a release date! The Tangled Tale of the Woolgathering Castoffs will be available on January 23, 2024. You can pre-order it now on Amazon, Christianbook.com, and Barnes and Noble.

In this tale of love, loneliness, and the power of community, you’ll join Rose Harker and the rest of the Woolgatherers as they reach out to those who love and care for dementia patients. Sam Talbot, lost and lonely since his wife had to move into Memory Care, isn’t quite sure how he got tangled up with a bunch of knitters (and a crocheter, as feisty Edna O’Brian is quick to remind everyone), but he’s about to find out that prayer shawls (and those who make them) can change your life.

The post The Adventure Continues! appeared first on Sharon J Mondragon.

I connected with this group of women as a result of a mail campaign my agent came up with. We were seeking a publisher for The Unlikely Yarn of the Dragon Lady and needed to demonstrate that there was an audience for a novel about women who make prayer shawls. I sent letters and emails to every prayer shawl ministry I could find, telling them about the book and asking them to please, please, please subscribe to my website so publishers could see how many people really would like to read such a novel. The KnitWits Prayer Shawl Ministry of North Decatur Presbyterian not only signed up, they included me in their hilarious email group and helped promote the book before it came out.

It was great to meet the Women Together (many of whom belong to the KnitWits), chat with them, then share my experiences with God and prayer shawls, along with the journey to the publication of The Unlikely Yarn of the Dragon Lady. I am now an honorary KnitWitter. I had so much fun that I’d like to do it again and again with more women’s groups. In this new age of technology, I can be available to do just that! If you would like me to speak at your women’s group, prayer shawl group, book club, or Bible study, contact me at sharonjmondragon@gmail.com

The post Let’s Talk! appeared first on Sharon J Mondragon.

When? When?

When will it be available, you ask? Not until the winter of 2023. The wonderful folks at Kregel and I have a lot of work to do to get this book ready to make its “Ta-da!” There will be several months of editing, to make sure it’s the very best it can be before it gets to you. The titling committee will work their magic, along with the cover artists, the proof-readers, the folks who write the back cover copy, the hard-working marketing department, the printers…I hope you get the picture that the book you will eventually hold in your hands is the loving and professional work of many, many people.

What’s it About?

This new book is about the Woolgatherers, the prayer shawl ministry Rose started at Fair Meadows Retirement Community. The Woolgatherers have a heart for caregivers of folks with dementia. You’ll get to know Sam, lost and lonely since his beloved Dorothy had to go to Memory Care, along with fun-loving and flirtatious Jenny. Then there’s Edna, a crocheter who wouldn’t even be at Fair Meadows except for…well, I didn’t even know why she was there for a while, she played it so close to the vest.
Sam is at his lowest low when he gets tangled up with Edna, Jenny, and the rest of the Woolgatherers. Little does he know that taking up his wife’s old crochet hooks will have the power to heal his life—and possibly, to save it. In this tale of love and loss, the pain of loneliness, and the power of community, Edna, Jenny, and Sam come face to face with uncomfortable truths about themselves, challenged to embrace new ways of living and relating to God and others.

In the Meantime…

While you wait for this story, you can still spend time with the Heavenly Hugs prayer shawl ladies via “Called to Adventure.” It’s the Bible study I’ve developed as a companion to The Unlikely Yarn of the Dragon Lady. You can download it (free of charge!) right here on my website, sharonjmondragon.com.

The post Fabulous News! appeared first on Sharon J Mondragon.

Called to Adventure, the companion Bible study for The Unlikely Yarn of the Dragon Lady is now available on my website. All you have to do is provide your email address, click the button, and it will be delivered to your inbox. It consists of two PDF documents—the Student Guide and the Leader’s Guide.

“I never thought of reading fiction this way, looking for the spiritual principles in the story.”.

This is what one of the women who “test-drove” the beta version of the study told me. I’ve found that literature, whether written from a Christian worldview or not, often illustrates the effects of living in accordance with or opposed to Jesus’s teachings. For example, Moby Dick gives us a powerful example of the ravages of seeking revenge, showing why God has said, “Vengeance is mine.” Macbeth shows us the soul-corroding effect of treachery and murder.

The Unlikely Yarn of the Dragon Lady is by no means a classic, like Moby Dick or Macbeth. But I hope that studying it in the light of Scripture will deepen your understanding of the spiritual principles it seeks to illustrate. I hope this study inspires you to embrace God’s call to adventure.

Tell Me About Your Adventure!

I would love to hear about how God is challenging and changing you as you study! You can contact me at sharonjmondragon@gmail.com

The post Called to Adventure appeared first on Sharon J Mondragon.

My debut novel, The Unlikely Yarn of the Dragon Lady, is about what happens when a group of prayer shawl knitters step out of their comfort zone to knit their shawls, not in the quiet prayer chapel at their church, but at a busy mall during the Christmas shopping season. It turns out to be quite an adventure.

Come Along on an Adventure into God’s Word

To this end, I’ve written a companion Bible study to take the reader deeper into the message of The Unlikely Yarn of the Dragon Lady. “Called to Adventure” is a six-week Bible study that explores some of the spiritual themes of the book. The study covers such topics as responding to God’s call (“The Winds of Change”), taking the light of God’s love into the world (“Into the Darkness”), and forgiving others (“Travelling Light”).

Developing this study has been an adventure in itself! I must admit that after my agent suggested I do this, I dragged my feet. Me? Write a Bible study? But much like Margaret was chased up to Barbara’s hospital room, God nudged me, over and over to write this study. I finally had to say “Uncle!” when a recent Oxford seminary graduate offered to help.
My pastor graciously allowed me to “test-drive” it with the ladies of my church. I learned a great deal from my “beta-testers.” The result is a revised and expanded study with an accompanying leader’s guide.

How Can You Get Your Copy?

It will soon be available as a free, downloadable PDF for those who request it and subscribe to my website. Stay tuned for the announcement. In the meantime, grab your Bible and a copy of The Unlikely Yarn of the Dragon Lady and prepare for adventure!

The post Are You Up for an Adventure? appeared first on Sharon J Mondragon.

Yesterday I attended my youngest grandson’s preschool graduation, an event both exciting and bittersweet. For the past four and a half years, both sets of grandparents have tag-teamed caring for him while his parents work. It seems like it has taken no time at all to go from bottle-feeding, diaper-changing, and naps to walking, talking, and telling me everything he knows about the solar system.

The Gift of Time

This sense of swiftly speeding time is the gift of grandparenthood. From raising their parents, we know how quickly children grow. We know to savor each phase of childhood. For the most part, we’re at a place in life where we can take things at a child’s pace. The time it takes to watch a roly-poly cross the sidewalk. Reading If You Give a Mouse a Cookie one more time (because you never know when it’s going to be the last time). Performing a nose transplant on Pooh Bear because “someone” kept chewing on it.

But the Times are Changing

I used to carry his school stuff into his twice-a-week preschool, his small hand in mine. This year he shouldered his backpack, while I carried the nap mat with Pooh Bear tucked inside, reminding us of when Pooh ate too much honey and got stuck in Rabbit’s door. I will miss the school morning routine: marveling at how his mother, a teacher has broken down dressing himself into manageable steps, cooking breakfast together, making Gwama and Gwampa’s bed with Gwampa, and the finishing touch—standing on the stepstool in front of the bathroom mirror for his grandfather to comb his hair, intoning my husband’s lifelong motto, “Look sharp, feel sharp, BE sharp!”

On to New Adventures

In the fall, Pooh will stay home while my grandson embarks on the adventure of kindergarten. And while I’ve been a bit weepy lately as this precious season comes to a close, adventure is beckoning me, too. Stories that wait to be discovered, books that long to be written, and more time, dear readers, to write them.

The post Endings…and New Beginnings appeared first on Sharon J Mondragon.

Touching hearts and lives are the operative words here. Over 30 years ago, my first article appeared in American Baby magazine. It was exciting to receive the acceptance letter, sign the contract, receive the check, and see the work in print. The best, however, was yet to come. Young mothers who read the article wrote to the magazine editor. Others wrote to me and one even called me–and this was back in the days of snail mail and phone books. These readers went to their public libraries and looked up this information, all because they wanted me to know that the article had made them feel less alone as mothers of premature babies. To know that my words comforted and encouraged mothers in a difficult situation was the very best part of being published for the first time.

Likewise, the road to authorship has had exciting moments–finding my wonderful agent, Ali Herring, signing the contract with Kregel, working with my editor, Jean Bloom, seeing the proof copy for the first time, holding the actual book in my hands when my author copies arrived. This past Thursday, friends and family joined me at Ewe2Yarn, the yarn shop where I teach knitting for my launch party. My cup of gratitude ran over as I greeted my guests, signed books, and posed for pictures to commemorate the occasion. Many of these folks have been on this journey with me for years, praying this book to publication.

But, as wonderful as all this has been, I know that the best, the very best is yet to come. The deepest joy will be hearing from readers. Yesterday my sister-in-law (who recently received her pre-ordered copy) gave me sneak peek at this anticipated and humbling joy. She had just finished reading the scene with Fran’s granddaughter appearing in her first Christmas pageant. It reminded her of the time one of our nieces, debuting as an angel, dropped her candle and set the hay on fire! The pastor and Grandpa calmly stamped it out, as our niece cried and cried. For my sister-in-law, the scene in the book brought back this memory and the memory of my father-in-law scooping up his “L’il Bit” to console her.

As my publisher releases The Unlikely Yarn of the Dragon Lady into the world today, I release it as well, to do and be all that God intends it to be. If it touches your heart and life, it would give me great joy to hear about it!

Blessings,
Sharon

The post And the Best is Yet to Come! appeared first on Sharon J Mondragon.

Both a rocket and a book need enough fuel to achieve lift-off. For a book, the fuel is people–people who help spread the word, create enthusiasm about a forthcoming book, and keep the fire stoked after its release. I’m here to tell you that I need some fuel to get this book off the ground! I need 30 people who will help me fuel lift-off for six weeks–two weeks before launch day and the month after (I recently learned that bookstores are only obligated to carry a new book for 30 days, so that first month is important!). The publishing world calls this group of people a Launch Team. I hope you’ll consider being part of mine.

I have some ideas for ways we can get the word out and I know that team members will come up with great and creative ideas, too. If we pool our ideas and our spheres of influence, we can send this book into orbit! Not only this book, but others as well. My publisher has subtitled The Unlikely Yarn of the Dragon Lady A Purls and Prayers Novel, in the hope that people will love it enough to want more books about prayer shawl makers. Since the many Apollo missions had a Roman numeral after each one, I’m calling the launch team for The Unlikely Yarn of the Dragon Lady Purls and Prayers I. May this team be the first of many!

I thank all of you who have been praying for the ministry of The Unlikely Yarn of the Dragon Lady. Would you also like to be a member of the Purls and Prayers I Launch Team, brainstorming ways to spread the word about this book? Team members will receive an advance copy of the book so they can read and review it, then begin to create a buzz about it even before launch day. Together, we’ll create fun missions that will get the word out. Some will take us out into the world and others can be completed from the comfort of our own homes. “Either way,” as the pastor in the book says, “It’s an adventure!”

If you’re interested in going on this adventure with me, please click on the link below to access the application form for Purls and Prayers I!

Launch Team Application

The post Purls and Prayers I appeared first on Sharon J Mondragon.