THE AMISH MENORAH, from The Men who write Amish Fiction

A busy year for Patrick E. Craig… and much more to come!

Plus . . . a Giveaway, to boot!

Patrick E. Craig

It’s been a busy year for me. Since September of 2019 I have released three books and contracted for three more. I have completed another book slated for Indie release and started a second series with my writing friend Murray Pura. Here’s what my year has been like.

In September 2019, Elk Lake Publishing released the second book in my YA Mystery/Adventure series, The Adventures of Punkin and Boo. The book is titled The Lost Coast and is the continuation of a series I first started writing in 2007 but put on hold until I connected with Deb Ogle Haggerty, owner at Elk Lake . With her help I released book one, The Mystery of Ghost Dancer Ranch, in April of last year and then we followed that with The Lost Coast. Book three, The Hidden Gate is on its way and should be done for release in early 2021.

Then I got involved in some projects with my friend, Murray Pura, who has written more than 28 books of his own. We decided we wanted to do a World War II story and the Islands Series was born. Far on the Ringing Plains is the first book. It’s the story of three young men who are raised as pacifists but through different circumstances end up in the Marines fighting on Guadalcanal, two as soldiers and one as a medic. The book has a lot of the same spirit as Flags of Our Fathers, Hacksaw Ridge and Pearl Harbor. We Indie published it in April 2020. We just finished writing book two, The Scepter and The Isle. In it the same three young men have gone on to the battles of Tarawa and Saipan. It’s in the editing process now and we hope to have it released early next year. Our grand plan is a nine book series going through WWII, Vietnam/Cambodia and the current desert wars. Murray and I are also writing a western series, The Storm Riders, also contracted to Elk Lake, and we are part way through Book one.

But my most current project is the one I want to feature today. In the summer of 2019 I met Thomas Nye at an Amish Writers Event in Shipshewana, Indiana. Over coffee and apple pie at an incredible Amish family dinner we attended, we bemoaned the lack of recognition of the men who write Amish fiction. There are about eight of us compared to the hundreds of women who write Amish Fiction. We decided that an anthology of stories would be a great idea. When I got back to Idaho I contacted Murray, who has written several Amish books for Harvest House, Harlequin and other traditional publishers and broached the idea. He jumped on board and we contacted Amos Wyse, Willard Carpenter and Jerry Eicher. They all agreed to join the project, Deb Haggerty signed it and at the end of April we published The Amish Menorah and Other Stories. Here is a short blurb:

The Amish Menorah and Other Stories

Six short stories by the men of Amish fiction to entertain and educate you. You’ll journey with an Amish man and the Jewish woman whose life he saves (The Amish Menorah by Patrick E. Craig), agonize with an Amish girl in love with an Englische man (A Cloudy Day by Willard Carpenter), fret with two sisters both in love with the same man (When Hearts Break by Jerry Eicher), pray with the family whose child is injured in a fall (The Silo by Thomas Nye), work with the Amish sheriff in a western town (Lone Star by Murray Pura), and laugh at the girl forced to be Amish for the summer (Amish For The Summer by Amos Wyse.)

The six of us had so much fun with The Amish Menorah project that we are doing another anthology for Christmas. We don’t have a title yet, but we will let you all know as soon as we do.

And that’s what the last year has been like for me. I am looking forward to 2021, and all the writing I will be doing then. **I will be giving away a signed copy of The Amish Menorah with this post so comment below and enter the contest. Stay well this next year and keep reading.

Thanks, Peg, for having me.

About Patrick E. Craig:

Amazon Best-Selling author Patrick E. Craig, is a lifelong writer and musician who left a successful music career to become a pastor in 1986. In 2007 he retired to concentrate on writing and publishing fiction books. In 2011, Patrick signed a three-book deal with Harvest House Publishers to publish his Apple Creek Dreams series. His self-published books, The Amish Heiress, The Amish Princess, and The Mennonite Queen, as well as the reprinted Apple Creek Dreams are now published by Patrick’s imprint, P&J Publishing. In 2017, Harlequin Publishing purchased The Amish Heiress for their Walmart Amish series and released it in April 2019.

Patrick and co-author Murray Pura have just released Far On The Ringing Plains, Book 1 in a nine book series that will take in the whole sweep of men and women at war from WW II to the current Desert Campaigns. They have also collaborated on an anthology of realistic Amish stories written with the four other men who write Amish fiction: Willard Carpenter, Jerry Eicher, Thomas Nye and Amos Wyse. The Amish Menorah and Other Stories was published by Elk Lake Publishing in May of 2020. He has also recently released two books in his YA mystery series, The Adventures of Punkin and Boo, with Elk Lake Publishers. They are The Mystery of Ghost Dancer Ranch and The Lost Coast. Patrick and his wife Judy live in Idaho. They have two daughters and five grandchildren. 

Where can readers find Patrick online?

www.patrickecraig.com  Webpage
https://www.facebook.com/PatrickECraig  Facebook

https://twitter.com/PatrickECraig  Twitter

Where can readers purchase his books? http://tinyurl.com/n6sfagg Amazon

Also on any of the other online stores.

**About Patrick's Giveaway:

As he said above, Patrick is offering one of this post's readers a free autographed copy of The Amish Menorah. To enter, all you need to do is leave a comment below with your NAME and CONTACT info so we can notify you in case you're our winner. As easy as that.

This giveaway will run for one week from today ending on Wednesday, August 5 at Midnight O'Clock, Central time.

Thanks for being my guest again, Patrick. I think it's neat that you're part of a group of men who've dipped their toes into the world of Amish fiction, a genre usually populated by women writers. Sounds like this book needs to be added to my Kindle TBR list.