sistersville, wv

I read the shiloh books with my children and now my grandson. I love how well you describe Sistersville as being a good place to live as I was born and raised there. Everytime I read the book it takes me back to those wonderful days. I haven’t lived there since 1988. I still have family and friends that live. It breaks my heart that it isn’t that wonderful place anymore. I was just wondering how you were able to describe Shilow, and the surrounding areas so well? Did you live there or have family there? Thank you for a book that I will never get tired of reading with my grandchildren

Shiloh was named after a real dog which we came across when we were visiting old college friends of my husband’s up in Friendly, and I’m sure you know where that is.  Rex and I had risen early one morning to walk along Middle Island Creek, and that’s where we found a skinny, frightened, filthy little dog, something like a beagle.  I couldn’t get that dog out of my mind after we left to go back to Bethesda MD, so I wrote a book about a beagle that is mistreated, and gave myself the task of figuring out how an eleven-year-old boy could get the dog from its miserable owner.  We visited a number of times, and I think we went to dinner occasionally in Sistersville.  I just remember some Victorian houses.  Our friends eventually moved to Missouri to be near their sons, but my husband too is from Buckhannon, so I got to know and love West Virginia.