My friend Kristine Jensen from my writing group just launched her first novel. It’s a delightful story called Wednesday Club about a city girl whose life changes forever when her mother dumps her at her grandparents’ remote South Dakota farm against her wishes.

Kris was inspired to write this novel when she discovered a box of old handwritten minutes from her own grandmother’s club, the Wednesday Club, a group of South Dakota farm women who kept written records of their meetings from 1927 to 1987, carefully following parliamentary procedure. Kris was born and raised in South Dakota herself, so she has a deep understanding of the land and the folks who have lived on it. Kris now resides in Eugene, Oregon.

With vivid description of place and people she takes the reader into the world of rural South Dakota from the summer of 1963 to 1964, seen not only through the eyes of the fictional seventeen-year-old Ivy, who does not want to be there, but also through the eyes of some of the farm women who have their own crises. These women of course have their Wednesday Club, patterned on the group Kris’s grandmother was a part of. As noted on the back cover of Kris’s book, Ivy’s “grandmother ropes her into the Wednesday Club, a group of six women who gather to swap gossip and try to make sense of the turbulent world of 1963.”

Kris skillfully weaves their stories together with humor that sometimes made me laugh out loud, and with touching moments that evoked tears, and gripping moments that kept me turning pages. Ivy’s experience affects her in ways she never dreamed.

And here in the photo below is our own group at my house at one of our regular meetings. We don’t have a Wednesday Club but we writers do meet on the occasional Saturday to share our progress and frustrations and hopes and plans for whatever writing project we’re working on.

We do chat a bit about the turbulent world today, but mostly we try to encourage and support each other in what can often be a lonely business–writing books.

Congratulations to Kris on getting her book out there. That’s a major accomplishment. Wishing her the best on her launch.

For more information you can check out Kris’s website at http://www.wednesday-club.com. There you can learn about the real Wednesday Club, the setting on that South Dakota prairie, about Kris herself, and more. The book is available at the usual places. Just look for Kristine Jensen, Wednesday Club. And enjoy!