Miriam Ilgenfritz

Miriam lives on a farm established before the Revolutionary War, on one side of a mountain in Dornsife, Pennsylvania. Her house is 170 years old She and her husband Mark have raised 16 kids in this house; but since this is Amish country, she doesn't stand out all that much at the grocery store.

The kids turned out pretty well, considering that they didn't have rooms of their own or expensive summer camps, and most have now gone off to do interesting things with their lives.

Miriam began writing while the kids were young as a distraction from the ever-present laundry pile and discovered that it made her happy. She plans to continue and is working on a memoir about her childhood in Congo with her missionary parents. She tends her greenhouse plants and irises, and when her kids return home, they make Celtic music together; with Miriam on the flute. she wishes she played the cello and has even gone so far as to own one. She raises basset hounds, and because she is a woman who writes, she has a cat to supervise her work.