People who assume my books are only about quilts obviously haven't read them! I've always known that my books are about quilters - in other words, people - rather than quilts or quilting.

Ignorant people, whispering cruel rumors, her mother whispered. Pay them no mind.

When I was working on my first novel, 'The Quilter's Apprentice,' I knew I wanted to write about friendship, especially women's friendship and how women use friendship to sustain themselves and nurture each other.

One can never had too many librarian friends.

Beginning writers are often advised to 'write what you know,' and since I knew about quilters - their quirks, their inside jokes, their disputes and their generosity, their quarrels and their kindnesses - the lives of quilters became a natural subject for me. Quilting wove together my two themes as completely and effortlessly as I could have hoped.

For as long as I can remember, I've always been interested in issues of social justice, political freedom, and civil rights.

Anyone who works on a quilt, who devotes her time, energy, creativity, and passion to that art, learns to value the work of her hands. And as any quilter will tell you, a quilter's quilting friends are some of the dearest, most generous, and most supportive people she knows.