The daughter of Mennonite farmers, Joan M. Hochstetler grew up in central Indiana and graduated from Indiana University cum laude with a degree in Germanic Languages. She is an award-winning editor and author of historical fiction.

​Her American Patriot Series is the only comprehensive historical fiction series on the American Revolution. Her contemporary novel One Holy Night was the Christian Small Publishers 2009 Book of the Year and a finalist for the American Christian Fiction Writers Carol Award.

Joan enjoys spending time with her husband, Jay, a retired United Methodist pastor, and with her children and grandchildren. She and Jay are members of Brenneman Memorial Missionary Church in Goshen, Indiana.

 

Writing is hard work. What kept you on your writing journey when life tried to get in the way?

I don’t think most readers know how hard writing a good story is! I started writing—not with any intent to be published—back in 1977. My first book released in 2004. During that period there were many times when I laid writing aside and went on with my life, but the Lord kept bringing me back to it. Even since my first books were published, I’ve gotten so discouraged at times that I’ve told the Lord, if it’s your will, I’ll give it up and do something else. And every time He gave me half a dozen or so intriguing characters and plots that dragged me back to the computer! I’ve learned not to do that anymore. I’m in for the long haul whether my books get huge sales or not. It’s a calling, and we’re commanded to be faithful.

What’s your writing schedule like? Do you write seven days a week? Morning, afternoon, night?

I’ve made it a habit for a long time not to write on Sundays. I might jot down an idea that flits through my brain so I don’t forget it, but I try to keep Sunday as a day to focus on worship, family, and rest. I also try to reserve Saturday for housecleaning, but I tend to get on the computer for a while anyway. Writing is always more fun than cleaning house!

Late morning and afternoon are the best times for me when it comes to writing. By around five p.m. my brain isn’t going to come up with anything coherent, so there’s no point in making the attempt. Forget nights altogether. In my younger life I used do some writing when I woke up in the middle of the night and really could not go back to sleep. Nowadays I can only spend so many hours in front of a computer, and that’s during daylight. If ideas spring to my mind at other times, I just jot them down on any scrap of paper at hand … and hope I can read my scribblings in the morning and figure out what in the world I meant to say!

Please tell us about your new book, A Season for the Heart (November 2024, Sheaf House).

A Season for the Heart is set in central Indiana during the last summer of WWII, between Germany’s surrender in May and Japan’s formal surrender in September. Just graduated from high school, Ellie Hershberger is eager to escape her plain Mennonite life. She earned a scholarship to go to college in the fall to become a teacher and plans to discover all the world has to offer.

Jude Mast grew up on the farm across the road from the Hershbergers, and home is the very last place he ever intended to return to. Abused by his father, he ran away as soon as he turned eighteen and joined the Marines. Then the war began, and he ended up in the South Pacific confronting horrors he’d never imagined. Now, left scarred and crippled from wounds suffered on Iwo Jima, he has no choice but to return to his widowed mother in the farm community he thought he’d left behind forever—and the church from which he expects nothing but condemnation and rejection.

As Ellie and her family help Jude and his mother work their farm, she and Jude are increasingly drawn together. But when she suffers a shattering attack, and then the boyfriend who walked out of her life without explanation months ago drops back in, she wonders what God’s will is for her life. Meanwhile Jude fights to hold a defensive line against the neighbors whose daily acts of grace threaten to break his hardened heart. Can he and Ellie find their way home to the land, to the Lord—and to each other?

What was the catalyst for the story, the setting, the character, and/or the plot?

A Season for the Heart was inspired by my parents’ story in WWII. They were both raised Amish, Dad in Michigan and Mom in Indiana. Dad never joined church, and when he was drafted, he went into the Army in March 1941 for a one-year enlistment. After Dec. 7, of course, he was in for the duration. He and Mom met in July 1942 when he was on furlough home just before he shipped out to the South Pacific. They wrote to each other all during the war, and a month after he came home in October 1945, they married. Mom had joined the Mennonites by then, and he ended up joining as well. I was raised Mennonite on a farm east of Kokomo, Indiana, in a community that was heavily Mennonite and Amish.

In A Season for the Heart I wanted to explore themes that arose in that setting: growing up in a conservative, plain Christian home and church; having a father who had joined the Army and gone off to war in violation of church doctrine; the outer world’s lure through friends at school and contact with the wider community; the consequent longing for things opposed by the church’s teachings; trying to find one’s own place in the world, and so on. Ellie reflects me somewhat, and Jude is based on my Dad, though Ralph really reflects his personality more. Irma is definitely based on my Mom, especially in the frank discussions she has with Ellie!

What’s next for you?

I’m not certain yet, so I’m taking a break until the new year before I begin seriously pondering it. I think it’s going to be a project that has been in my mind for a while titled Darke Valley. I’d be returning to an early American setting in Ohio during or right after the Northwest Indian Wars. The hero is Major Alan Darke, a disgraced officer who returns home from the war to his father’s Ohio estate only to discover that his father died and the woman who holds his heart married his younger brother–who’s also in possession of the estate since Alan was believed to be dead. Beyond that—well, I have a lot of research and story plotting to do! I’m estimating that it’ll probably take me a couple of years to research and write.

A few fun questions in celebration of the season… What’s your favorite Christmas song?

It’s a tie between “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” and “Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence.” Both speak very deeply to my heart about the coming of the Messiah to live among us.

What’s your favorite Christmas comfort food?

Piping hot cinnamon rolls right out of the oven covered with a creamy vanilla glaze. Yum!

Which is your idea of a perfect Christmas tree: a lush blue spruce decorated with the latest couture; a shaggy cedar covered in homemade ornaments and strung with popcorn; a vintage aluminum tree with shiny glass bulbs; or a palm tree adorned with pink flamingos?

While I’m highly tempted by the palm tree with the pink flamingos, I have to go with the cedar covered with homemade ornaments. I’d probably forgo the popcorn string in favor a string of cranberries, though, or to be more practical, red wooden beads.

Have you ever had an unexpected or unusual Christmas celebration? Perhaps one that has now become a tradition?

One tradition I used to have when my little girls were still at home came about unintentionally. For a couple of years on Christmas Eve, after they were snugly in bed, I hung candy canes on our tree as if Santa had put them there. Then one year, thinking they wouldn’t miss them, I didn’t bother buying any. But on the morning of Christmas Eve, I overheard my oldest daughter reminding my youngest that they would know that Santa had come because he always hung candy canes all over the tree. Well, you bet I got to the store and bought candy canes! And I’ve hung them on the tree ever since, even now that my girls are all grown up and gone. The tradition evokes a sweet memory of the wonder and delight in my little ones’ eyes when they got up Christmas morning and discovered that Santa hadn’t forgotten them.

Merry Christmas, Joan! It’s nice to have you back at Divine Detour.

Thank you so much for inviting me, Kathy! I miss getting together with my Tennessee writer friends, and it’s a delight to reconnect. Christmas and New Year’s blessings to you and your family!

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For more information about Joan, visit her website and follow her on Facebook and Instagram. To purchase A Season for the Heart and other books by Joan, go to —