Written by: Lori Vonada, Venus, PA
I have the honor of being friends with a magnificent group of five scrapbookers! Even though there is 20 years between us, scrapbooking is not the only thing we love to do together. We love traveling and shopping together and enjoy endless hours talking and visiting with one another. Even though these women live two hours from me, they are my very best friends.
Last summer one of the women in our group, Kim Englert, came across Joanna’s first novel, Paper, Scissors, Death: A Kiki Lowenstein Scrap-N-Craft Mystery, while she was working at the circulation desk in the Northland Public Library. Kim bought the novel, read it, and placed it in a bag along with the supplies to create a scrapbook layout and passed the bag along to a friend in our group, Lori Smith. Lori read Joanna’s first novel, purchased and read her second novel, Cut, Crop & Die: A Kiki Lowenstein Scrap-N-Craft Mystery, put together the supplies to create a scrapbook layout, and passed the bag along to me. I read both books and passed them along with more layout supplies to the next friend in our group, Jan Dineff.
Before I passed the books and layout supplies along, I noticed in the back of one of Joanna’s books that you could write to request bookmarks. I wrote Joanna a letter but honestly never expected to hear back from her. Not only did I receive the bookmarks from her, but I also received autographed book plates for all of us and a wonderful letter personally written and signed by Joanna. In the letter she provided information about a festival she would be attending in Pittsburgh the following May. I read the letter to our group at a crop at our local scrapbook store, Scrapbook Super Station. (Wasn’t that the most appropriate spot?) While we were there that evening, we ran into another friend, Raelene Ellenberger. We told her about the letter. As luck would have it, she had met and talked to Joanna at length just the week before at Scrapfest in the Mall of America. What was the chance of that?!?! We decided we had to meet Joanna!
I wrote Joanna another letter and told her all about our group. This time she e-mailed me. In the weeks to come, Joanna and I e-mailed back and forth multiple times to set up a luncheon meeting while she was in Pittsburgh for the Festival of Mystery. Five of us met Joanna on Tuesday, May 4, in Oakland, PA, and went to the Union Grill for lunch. Joanna is such a remarkable person! (I’m not just saying that either…She truly is terrific!) She brought us each a goody bag filled with scrapbook supplies and our favorite item, the “I {heart} Kiki” pin! She brought along copies of her latest novel, Photo, Snap, Shot: A Kiki Lowenstein Scrap-N-Craft Mystery, and took the time to autograph them for us. Although Joanna would not tell us if Kiki is going to end up with Detweiler in the end of her series, we learned so much from her about the writing and publishing business. I was fascinated with what she had to say. She took the time to pose for numerous photographs as we walked through the University of Pittsburgh campus on our way back to her hotel after lunch. (Check out all the great photographs below!)
That’s the Cathedral of Learning on the University of Pittsburgh’s campus.
Here I am with Joanna.
And here’s a photo of our group.
We are already looking forward to reading Joanna’s fourth novel which will not be released for another year! (The wait will be horrendous!) Joanna