Jennifer Chiaverini answers your questions

Jennifer Chiaverini’s 19th Elm Creek Quilts novel, “Sonoma Rose” will be released on Tuesday, Feb. 21. I got a chance to talk with her in a phone interview from her Madison, Wis., home yesterday and read an advance copy of the book.

That means today is Elm Creek Quilts Day on Quilt Addicts Anonymous, because besides being totally addicted to quilting, I also can’t get enough of Chiaverini’s novels. You’ll read posts on the upcoming release, Chiaverini’s plans for future novels in the series and a review of “Sonoma Rose.” But first up is Chiaverini’s answers to your questions.

Linda Kleiber: Do you have any plans for a new series not based on the Elm Creek Quilters?

Jennifer Chiaverini: I don’t have any plans for a series like that right now, because I am committed to doing two Elm Creek Quilts novels a year for Dutton and that’s really quite an overwhelming workload already, and I can’t imaging trying to launch a new series while still fulfilling that commitment. But I’m certainly not ruling it out. If I do get a wonderful idea that absolutely inspires me for something new, for a series outside of this one, then I will of course want to pursue that. But at this point there are no plans for that.

Susie Goodley: How have the popularity of e-readers affected you as an author?

JC: It’s not something that I really notice working on my books in my office. It’s not really something that affects me day-to-day. But I’ve had for the first time in a couple years, people have bought their e-readers to book signings and have had me sign the cases instead of having me sign an actual book. I think it has affected the reader more than the writer, because when people write to me and tell me how much they like the book, they don’t really specify what format they got it in, whether it was an audiobook, or hardcover or e-reader, so that’s not something that is affecting me.

It is causing a lot of dramatic changes in the publishing world, and that I’m sure will affect me later on, but right now, in my day-to-day life as a writer, it’s not something that I am conscious of. But it’s something that I know will be affecting me possibly in the near future in a more visible and manifest way.

Jane Klocker: Will you write a book about the last few years of Sylvia’s life?

JC: Quite a bit of that is covered in “The Wedding Quilt,” and I do plan to fill in the years between the future that we see in “The Wedding Quilt” and what most people think of as the contemporary Elm Creek Quilters era, in fact “The Giving Quilt” (Chiaverini’s 20th novel in the series) is one of those books. But as far as specific periods within that timeline, I haven’t decided.