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.

Elizabeth Keckley was a woman of remarkable strength, courage, perseverance, and dignity. She was exceptionally talented, but also very diligent and ambitious, and together those qualities enabled her to deliver herself from slavery and become a successful businesswoman.

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.

People need stories...we use stories to teach, to learn, to make sense of the world around us. As long as we need stories, we will need books.

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.

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

In my contemporary stories, I write about today's quilters, inventive techniques they use, and how technology has influenced their art. Novels set in the past let me have fun researching patterns that were popular and fabrics and tools available to quilters through history.