Welcome, everyone. I am a native Oklahoman, a gardener, a dog mom, a music lover, and the author of the Lawhoma Hills series. Monday through Friday, something a lot less interesting than any of that. I created the fictional town of Lawhoma Hills, along with the families, businesses, traditions, and stories woven throughout its community, over a three-year period filled with caregiving lows and hard decisions for my aging mom, as well as the incredible highs of my daughter carrying twins and the gift of their being healthy and, quite honestly, the two most amazing beings I have ever known. Then came the loss of my mom three months later. I took years of my journals, poured the ups and downs into these stories, and made the rest up on sleepless nights.

When I am not writing or painting, I can usually be found in the garden with my dogs nearby, letting my grandbabies break rules with me, or rarely sleeping, because another idea came to me that I had to jot down.

Things I cannot live without in my author life include Diet Coke, Scrivener, Vellum, Paul (my illustrator), ADHD, compression socks (long hours sitting, plus the Yaya-age thing), fifteen or twenty pairs of blue-light readers scattered through the house, my Mac, a big ol' second screen, a desk buried under chicken-scratch legal pads, and music blasting through my Bluetooth speaker.

Thank you for being here.

— Ellis McHale