The Peach Jam that Unites Us
I quested to Germany to give you this
First, I want to point you all to a giveaway I’m hosting right now on Instagram. And—just for you newsletter subscribers, I’m offering a bonus. Comment on this newsletter (you can click at the bottom to do that) and you can get a bonus entry into the giveaway.
The giveaway includes a (super rare!) advanced copy of Full Speed to a Crash Landing, a pack of Oreo: Space Dunk cookies (so good!), the pre-order sticker goodies, and a jar of jam.
Jam?
Jam!
And this jam comes with a story time! A story time that starts in…Germany.
So, while researching for Night of the Witch and The Fate of Magic, I was able to visit Germany (honestly amazing; I adore these trips). And one of my goals with this was to find places for Otto and Fritzi to visit during The Fate of Magic, which includes a medieval road trip through Germany (where there’s a shocking lack of beds at the inn).
Anyway! Along the way, we visited a little town called Cochem, along the Moselle Valley. To be honest, I was mostly into the idea of seeing the beautiful castle and visiting the mustard museum to buy mustard for my husband.
(The mustard thing is real! They have a mustard museum with dozens of different flavors! I don’t actually like mustard, but if you do, go there!)
But Cochem became one of my favorite spots.
Honestly, I knew nothing about Cochem before visiting. It was gorgeous, as you can see.
As much as I thought the town was beautiful, it wasn’t really on my radar as a potential spot for the book. It had some amazing details that had potential, including a cool medieval wall (yes, I’m the type of person super into cool medieval walls) but I knew even then that it was unlikely I could finangle a way to get Fritzi and Otto here for story reasons.
One of the things I noticed as I walked through this town with my mother was advertisements for Weinbergspfirsich (say that three times fast). Thanks to my guide, I learned that this is German for “vineyard peach,” a speciality grown in this area of the Moselle River valley.
These weren’t in season when I was there, but there were several products using it, especially wine—of note, the Moselle is where Reisling comes from, my favorite wine. And this was delicious!
Wine is hard to travel with, though, and so, in order to bring a little of this beautiful fruit home, I bought a couple of jars of vineyard peach jam to share. Specifically, from this little store in the market square:
Honestly, I’m so glad that I took this picture. I remember the moment exactly—I was standing in the center of the market square, looking around, and was charmd by the beautiful architecture, and wanted to show my family where I got the speciality jam.
But what makes me even more glad I took the picture is because of what happens next.
See, I loved Cochem so much that I really wanted to put it in The Fate of Magic, but the story didn’t overlap with that. Geographically, Fritzi and Otto go a different way, and we found a different spot to send them on their road trip. It just didn’t work.
After Sara and I finished The Fate of Magic, I was still thinking about Germany and the trip, even when I started working on something VERY different—an adult science fiction novella that became Full Speed to a Crash Landing. It takes place (a) in the future, and (b) in SPACE, but…
I found a way to put my peaches in space.
See, in this story, Earth is polluted. It’s not apocalyptical levels—this is a light story, not a dark one—but there is luxury food, for example. And a rare peach that only grows in a certain place makes for a good luxury food, no?
Finally! I was able to get my red vineyard peaches into a book! Sure, it was the book set in space instead of Germany, but hey! It’s there!
And that made me think: wouldn’t it be cool to get some jars of this super cool peach jam to share with you guys?
And that’s when the quest began.
I could find this jam nowhere. NO. WHERE. Amazon? Nope. Speciality food stores? Nope. A food importer store I went to visit in person? Not at all. Facebook groups that specialize in importing goods from Germany to America? Nada. The best I could find was an wine import store that sold one single jar of the jam in a gift basket which costs hundreds of dollars, and when I reached out to see if I could just buy the jam, they ghosted me.
So, eventually, I resorted to blowing up the picture I happened to take in the town square, using Google Maps to find the contact information, and emailing the store owner. I got to meet the lovely Ulric, who didn’t know English, and I didn’t know enough German to make anything work without Google Translate. Ulric walked around his store, using his phone to send me photos of the shelves until I could find exactly what I was looking for. I, of course, ordered almost an entire case. It took months for me to get this jam—from finding it to ordering it to shipping it overseas, but in the end…
BEHOLD! THE JAM!
So, that’s the long story of how I discovered jam, wrote a book and couldn’t use it, wrote another and did use it, and then went on a quest so I could share it with y’all.
If you want to sample this, chances are you’re not going to find it in America. So please do enter my giveaways (remember—you can comment here for a bonus entry, and go to Insta).
And, like I said—I bought a case. Some of these are going to be gifts, but I do have more giveaways planned…including an upcoming one that will include both books, the jam, and something else extra yummy.
(And Y’ALL, don’t even get me started on the quest I took to find the Oreo Space Dunks—they were ALSO very hard to find!)
What’s Next?
So, as you can see, sometimes a random idea will hit me and stick with me, and it’ll take me years to find a way to put it into a story. Jam is just the beginning y’all.
Right now, I’m lucky enough to be working on something I’ve been obsessed about for awhile. I’m deep in drafting mode, and I simply cannot tell you more—none of this is announced yet. But I’ll give you one (or…more than one) clue:
(That’s a rock, btw, not a piece of ice. Which rock? I will simply not tell you.)
I hope you love this little behind-the-scenes peek of how my mind latches on to weird and random stuff and then eventually it turns into books.
If you’re into this sort of thing, I really encourage you to check out my Patreon. This month, I’ve done posts breaking down myths of royalty structures in publishing,
linked Taylor Swift to art production and writing, and did a more in-depth article on how we make connections between real life and stories (such as through peaches—although for the article I referenced Doctor Who instead). Plus, I’m serializing Darkness Fills the Void, which is a YA horror story about toxic friendships. You can get all posts and archives for as little as $5 a month, or get a higher rate to get critiques on your writing!
Writers…don’t miss this…
We’re not officially announcing it yet, but…listen, if you’re a writer, you’re going to want to subscribe to
. We’re announcing something in July that you are really going to want to hear about…What I’m Working on Now
Adult Fantasy: Sold, now drafting
Darkness Fills the Void: YA horror novel set in Western North Carolina. Currently only available to Patreons.
House of Hex: Almost a real book.
Side gigs!
Weekly posts and videos about writing at Patreon
SNHU as an online adjunct in the MFA writing program
Accepting critique and coaching jobs with Wordsmith Workshops—in addition to doing Word Lab!
Actively doing in-person school, library, and book fair events—book me for panels, signings, and workshops for both adults and teens on writing! If you’d like to get an idea of some of the programming I do, I describe it a bit here.
I love this so much! Super jealous that you got to travel to Germany!! <3
Really loved visiting a couple of small towns in Germany, each one so quaint and unique and peach jam sounds delicious!