I have come to anticipate exceptional things from every year’s Hallmark Hall of Fame movie, especially the ones that appear at Christmastime. And this year, Christmas Everlasting was no exception to that rule. Christmas Everlasting was based on Marie Bostwick’s novel, The Second Sister, and recently, I had the opportunity to interview this best-selling author about her career, including this phenomenal experience of her book becoming a highly-anticipated, well-received Hallmark movie.
RH: Please tell us a little about your journey to becoming a writer.
MB: Like many people in my profession, writing is an integral part of who I am. I was a very early reader and writer, and only five when I began writing stories. From that time on, I wrote continually, but only for my own enjoyment. For some reason, I never considered writing as a profession.
All that changed when, as a thirty-one-year-old mother of three, I wandered into a writer’s workshop while on vacation. The facilitator read a couple of my exercises and shocked me by asking me what I’d published. With that teacher’s encouragement, I began studying writing in a serious way, really trying to master the craft of writing. Ten years later, my first book was published.
Please tell us about the first thing you ever published and a little about it.
My first book, Fields of Gold, published in 2005, was a historical saga set in the Oklahoma panhandle. The novel opens in the 1920’s and carries through WWII while telling the story of a young woman named Evangeline Glennon whose life is forever changed by an encounter with the then-unknown Charles Lindbergh.
Fields of Gold was nicely reviewed and nominated for the Oklahoma Book Award. Apart from that, it didn’t exactly set the world on fire. It really is tough for a debut novel to get noticed. My mom did her part though. I think she bought about fifty copies and gave them as Christmas gifts to everyone she knew!
Please tell us about your books/series and feel free to elaborate as much as you like.
Since that first novel, I have published at least one book a year. My first three books were all WWII historical fiction. However, it wasn’t until my fourth book, A Single Thread, that my career as a writer really started to take off.
A Single Thread is a contemporary novel, set in a fictional New England village. The book features an ensemble cast of four women, all facing difficulties and transitions in their lives. Much of the action takes place in the Cobbled Court Quilt Shop, owned by Evelyn Dixon, who moves to the town in the wake of an unexpected divorce, and then resurrects her old dream of owning a quilt shop.
I wrote A Single Thread as a standalone novel. But the book struck a chord with readers. As soon as I finished it, my editor asked if I’d consider a sequel. The thousands of letters that poured in from readers asking the same question. Since I loved writing about that town and those characters, I was only too happy to oblige. Today, there are six books in my “Cobbled Court” series. A Single Thread has gone back to press eighteen times and hardly a day goes by without a reader writing to ask me to write another book in the series.
While I would never say never to that request, I think I’ve moved on from the “Cobbled Court” books. I did write two books, Between Heaven and Texas and From Here to Home that were spin-offs of the series, which are among my personal favorites.
Now I’m focusing on standalone novels. Those include:
The Promise Girls – a story of three failed child prodigy sisters,
Just In Time – the story of three grief support group dropouts who form their own support group,
and, of course, The Second Sister, which was adapted for Christmas Everlasting.
Please tell us about the process of your book being optioned and then made into a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie. Also, were you a fan of Hallmark before this film?
My agents were the ones who were in charge of the option process, so I didn’t even know it happened until it was a done thing. Of course, I was happy. But I know that books get optioned all the time and that’s as far as it goes, so I didn’t spend much time thinking about it. Maybe I was afraid to get my hopes up?
Getting a call saying that Hallmark had picked up the option was a surprise and huge thrill! When my agent told me it was to going to be a Hall of Fame feature, I totally lost it! Like everybody else, I grew up watching the Hall of Fame productions as a kid, so I knew what a big deal that was. And while the demands of my writing schedule just don’t leave much time for TV watching, I do enjoy the Hallmark Channel when I can. Anyway, by the time my agent finished talking, I was crying so hard I could hardly speak. It was just a very emotional thing for me. Of course, when I pulled myself together, I called everybody – my husband, my kids, my mom, my sisters, and all my friends.
I understand you visited the set of Christmas Everlasting. Please tell us a little about your experience.
Marie Bostwick and Tatyana Ali with quilt Marie gave her on the set
Oh, my! That was honestly one of the best days of my life. Everyone was so kind to me. I was a little anxious at first, worried I’d be in the way. But the cast and crew couldn’t have been more welcoming, treating me like I belonged there. The thing that really struck me was how many people were working on the project. There must have been at least one hundred people there, all very busy and focused on doing their jobs, and doing them well. I just had the sense that I was surrounded by excellence.
Marie Bostwick and Friends of Alice
And you can imagine how thrilled I was to meet Tatyana Ali, Dondre Whitfield, Patti LaBelle, and Dennis Haysbert! I’m one of those people who loves to give presents, so I decided to bring gifts for the cast. I bought little presents for the male actors and the director, Ron Oliver. But I decided that I wanted to give handmade gifts to the ladies. I gave Tatyana Ali the original “Lucy’s Legacy” quilt that I’d designed and sewn for the book. (We both got weepy when I gave it to her and explained the meaning behind it.) And I had to sew like the wind to quilt four Thanksgiving table runners for Miss LaBelle and the members of the FOA (Friends of Alice). I was still stitching bindings by hand on the flight to Atlanta, but I got them done!
Visiting the set was a peak experience, but it’s hard to adequately describe what it meant to me personally. As I writer, I sit in my little office and tap away on my computer, creating imaginary friends. And suddenly, there I was in the town I had conjured up, meeting the characters I had invented, and they were real! When I first walked up to Lucy’s house, a home in hot, humid Georgia that had been transformed into a snow-covered cabin in Wisconsin, I started to tear up. It just looked so right, so perfect.
You are also an avid quilter. From where did that passion come?
Tatyana Ali, Dondre Whitfield Credit: ©2018 Crown Media United States LLC/Photographer: Michael Larsen
Growing up, I made a lot of my own clothes, so I had the sewing skills early on. But I didn’t start sewing until my mid-twenties. One day, I saw a pretty quilt in a display window, then went inside and signed up for a class. As a then young mother of two little boys, I was happy to have some time to myself in the company of women. Things just went on from there.
At this point, I’ve lost track of how many quilts I’ve made. At least fifty or sixty. A few of my original designs have been published in quilt magazines, but I definitely consider myself a writer who quilts, not a quilter who write. Quilting is my hobby. Writing is my art.
Having seen the finished product of this film based on your book, what are your thoughts as an author?
Dondre Whitfield, Tatyana Ali Credit: ©2018 Crown Media United States LLC/Photographer: Brian Douglas
You know, there is a certain anxiety that goes with putting your book into someone else’s hands. Though The Second Sister has a happy ending, like all my books, some of the events that occur in the novel are darker and more complicated that would be workable or appropriate for a Hallmark movie. It was hard to imagine how the screenwriters would be able to translate the book to film and still maintain the essence of the story.
Tatyana Ali, Dondre Whitfield Credit: ©2018 Crown Media United States LLC/Photographer: Guy D’Alema
My concerns were misplaced. The screenwriters and director made good choices in adapting the novel. They were able to create a beautiful, meaningful script that stayed true to the central messages of the book. When my husband saw a couple of scenes – particularly the scene with Lucy and Peter at the covered bridge, and also with Lucy and the FOA – he said, “Honey, that sounds so much like you that I’d have thought you wrote it.” The script was wonderful. The actors brought the story, and characters that live in my head, to life.
Any other upcoming books that you can mention?
My next book, Hope on the Inside will be released in late March of 2019. It’s about an empty-nest woman whose life is changed when she takes a job teaching quilting to inmates in a women’s prison. This was a challenging book to write, but I’m very happy with how it turned out. It’s a truly uplifting story, and I’m sure readers are going to love it.
How do you and your family celebrate the holidays?
Our holiday celebrations have had to change as our kids have established families of their own. We still decorate, exchange gifts, and go to Christmas Eve services at church, but I’ve passed my turkey baster on to the next generation. This year, I’ll be the assistant chef to my daughter-in-love as we travel to Oklahoma to spend Christmas with my son and his family, including two of our six grand darlings.
Can’t wait!
I’ll be honest. Until the buzz surrounding Christmas Everlasting appeared, I had never heard of Marie. And I have yet to read one of her books. However, the fact that this movie was so impeccably accomplished as well as overwhelmingly hailed as an instant favorite (not to mention highly emotional) has caused me to place Marie on my “to-be-read-soon” list. My mom and I were both mesmerized and touched by the movie Christmas Everlasting, and how nice it is to know that the author herself has essentially placed her stamp of approval on the production. As far as Hallmark Hall of Fame presentations go, Christmas Everlasting has become a high-ranking one, in my humble opinion, and I hope that Hallmark will consider more work from Marie in the future as a basis for other film offerings. If you have not had the opportunity to watch Christmas Everlasting, I invite you to check out the Hallmark Network for more showings of this film. (Note that it has moved to Hallmark Movies & Mysteries now though it originally appeared on the Hallmark Channel.) I also notice that the next showing in Canada of Christmas Everlasting is on the W Network on December 13th. Moreover, while you’re thinking about it, I hope you take a look at Marie’s links below and consider supporting her either with a follow or maybe even a download or a purchase of one of her books. If Christmas Everlasting is even close to the caliber of stories she consistently writes, no wonder she has such an incredible following of readers, and I am glad that Hallmark has alerted me to her undeniable talent!
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