I started writing as a way of letting my children know where I came from and what shaped me. I grew up in a small coastal Massachusetts town, where the Pilgrims just happened to have landed some 340 years earlier. My family and I lived in a 100 year old house that was three stories high, square and unyielding even to hurricane force winds, and its many windows reflected the sky and ocean. At night, you fell asleep to the sound of waves or the lonely fog horn on Gurnet lighthouse. My seasons were spent on or in the water, so sailing and swimming are themes in some of what I write, with New England overtones. For the last thirty years, I have lived in North Carolina, a place I’ve come to love, and that New England accent has acquired a Southern lilt.
I had a long and active career in academia, and if you want to know more about that, you can Google me. For now, I am just a writer trying to find her voice.
Noelle Granger
Writing as N.A. Granger, Author of Death in a Red Canvas Sail and Death in a Dacron Sail (soon to be released)
Ah so you ARE from the Plymouth area!!! 🙂
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Yes, I grew up there. And as a parent, one swat on the diapered rear was about all we did for discipline, aside from the time out stair!
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Shortly after my granddaughter was born, I started to write about her dad in particular so that she would know him and us. I also write down what we did when we go visit. Only I and hubby know about this book. Plan to give it to her when she is 18 or so. Margareta
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That is a wonderful idea! I love how even your son doesn’t know about it. Have you written something for him as well?
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Yup! Thing is, I don’t want to embarrass him. I used a picture of him when he was about six months old in one of my lectures for many, many years. I also have a lot of writing from my mother, and we interviewed my grandmother for many hours before she died (on videotape now).
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What a lovely thing to do! For m kids, I started writing up “stories” of what it was like growing up but need to expand to tell them what my husband and I did B.C. (before children)!
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I really like your blog; look forward to visiting more often.
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Vie versa! Thanks!
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Hi Noelle, Just wanted to let you know I have nominated you for a whole heap of awards – The sisterhood of world bloggers, the inner peace award, the angel award, the wonderful team member readership award and the wordpress family award. You can find out more at http://irenewaters19.com/2014/05/19/awards-galore-inner-peace-angels-award-sisterhood-wordpress-family-and-more/
Hope you will accept. I just wanted to let you know how much I have appreciated your visits, your posts since meeting you on the A-Z challenge. Cheers Irene
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Irene, you are a peach. I am so glad we found each other in the blogging world because reading about your life and seeing your photos has been a joy. Thank you!
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I feel likewise and you’re welcome.
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Hi Noelle, I accepted your award nomination. Thank you for thinking of me! The acceptance can be found here:
http://kateloveton.wordpress.com/2014/05/31/as-close-as-im-going-to-get-to-the-oscars/
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Hello Noelle, I am just looking at the rules for the awards and just wanted to check which ones you have nominated me for. Would you mind emailing me please? I can’t find a contact email for you on your blog. awomanswisdom@hotmail.com. Thank you 🙂
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Hi Noelle, thanks for reading Kate Loveton’s review of my book ‘Ignoring Gravity’. I’m off to explore your blog now. SD
http://www.sandradanby.com/
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I want to read your book but couldn’t find it on Kindle. Will it be there any time soon?
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Noelle, I am more than 25% of the way thru your first Rhe Brewster book. When finished, I would like to review. Could you email me – I’d like to ‘talk’ with you about it. I love your book!
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I am inhaling yours – just to preview my review!
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Hello Noelle, I was wondering if you would like to do a guest blog for me? Please email me at awomanswisdom@hotmail.com if you like the idea 🙂
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Following you from Rereading Jane Eyre’s blog recommendation list! Looking forward to your content! 😀
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Thank you…things are slow here right now while I prepare for a week long trip but will pick up when I get back. Welcome to my world!
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Enjoy your trip! I’ll be waiting (and perusing your blog in the interim). 😀
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What an inspirational location to grow up in!
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You have a wonderful blog Noelle 🙂 Keep writing
We have some interesting quizzes on several topics.. u can visit us here.. https://careershapers.wordpress.com/
You can follow us if you like some of them .. 🙂
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I’m already thinking about what to write – you can find me at sailingawayng@gmail.com – mmmm…
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It’s so nice to meet you Noelle. The path you’ve traveled sounds like a storybook. From Massachusetts to North Carolina? That had to be culture shock! (I recently had a job-hunt-bite for a position that would be a nice promotion in Durham. Cross your fingers for me.)
I’m looking forward to reading more of your blog. Hugs! 😀
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Durham is a great place to live! There are so many northerners in this area, there is no culture shock! North Carolina also has more writers than any other state. Lots of critique groups, readings and conferences! You would love it.
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Thanks for stopping by my blog to visit and for following. I am honored. Great site you have here. I look forward to more on your blog.
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You are most welcome. I do not post a great deal – except my hands and my mind kind of got away from me Christmas week – but try to keep up with my followers!
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Post submitted. Hope you like it.
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Just leaving my pawprint 😀 Warm regards Don
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And a large and kind pawprint it is! 😉
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” I am just a young writer trying to find her voice”. Wow, I love this aspect. You’re really good, a pleasure to comment on your blog. Warm regards, Rythaephua.
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Thanks for visiting! I’m not really young, except in heart and writing experience…
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I know right, smiling……………
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A lovely ‘About’ page. We have a few things in common–writing, Chapel Hill and NC, a love of New England and being bloggers. I look forward to following and reading your blog. Thank you for exploring and following mine. 😊
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Thank you, Mary. We need to get together for tea or coffee when you return!
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Yes, please. Let’s do.
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I’m in the phone book and you can find me at sailingawayng@gmail.com!
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Just a quick message from another southern girl, thanking you, Noelle for reading and reviewing Raven’s Choice!
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You’re most welcome, Harper! If you send me an ARC of the next book, I can review it in advance. I’m looking forward to it!
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Hi Noelle! I just wanted to let you know that I have nominated you for the Premio Dardos Award. You can click here for the details: https://beyondtheflow.wordpress.com/2015/01/24/accepting-the-premio-dardos-award/ xx Rowena from Beyond the Flow.
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So nice to meet you here via Smorgasbord- Variety is the Spice of Life. We are fellow nominees. I’m thankful to Sally, or otherwise maybe we would have not crossed paths. I’m now a New England ‘girl’ (after living in SF bay area for over 20 years) and have much to learn! How to navigate snow is one of the lessons still ongoing… 🙂
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Thanks for stopping by! I still love New England and always feel like I’m coming home when I fly in over Boston harbor. But after more than 30 years of living in Chapel Hill, I feel like a Southerner, too. There’s still nothing like a New England summer, especially along the coast, but I don’t miss the snow at all. Spent a week in Maine doing research for my books last February, which reminded me of that!
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Hi. I found your lovely blog today via your review post on Rosie’s #RBRT blog: The Haunting of Secrets by Shelley Pickins. Enjoyed reading your thoughts on the book.
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Thank you so much! Thanks for following my blog – I’ll make a trip over to yours to visit!
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Hi Noelle! I’ve seen your gravatar around, so I thought I would follow you, and stop by to introduce myself – and thanks for the follow back! Congrats on your new book! I will be looking forward to your posts!
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Thanks! Hope you enjoy my future posts!
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Welcome
I am glad that I can be your reader
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Thank you – love it when people stop by my blog! Keeps me posting. Stay tuned for the A-z Challenge!
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We are waiting!
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very interesting CV(résumé, LOL!)… do you have any French roots, please?… my very best, lots of inspiration and have a splendid week! cheers, Mélanie
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I do indeed. My father’s mother was French and my mother’s father was French Canadian! I am also Irish and Polish – quite a mix! Thank you for liking my blog!
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I know you follow both rara and Grayson queen. I am not a blogger by any means but would like to let Graysons friends know that it has been confirmed Grayson passed away on May 5th. Rara does know. There is no details as to what happened and none are expected anytime soon. Grayson will be missed by so many. His art touched so many lives and he will be remembered as a great artist and human all around. Please help me let his friends know.
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Thank you for letting me know. I am very saddened by this news – not only by Grayson’s death but also for the effect this will have on Rara. And our inability to communicate with her.
Please keep in touch with me. How incredibly sad – and he was so very young!
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That is such a brilliant idea writing for your children. The matriarchs tend to be the scrap books and photo albums of both sides of the family. 🙂
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We have always had a matriarchal family! When my Mom (95) and her sister (98) died, I got the crown!
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The family history most certainly goes with that crown! 🙂
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Ah! Massachusetts and North Carolina – the two states in the USA that I have lived in – I am a New Zealander. If I had a choice of where to live in the world today, it would be South Turkey Creek Road, Leicester, Asheville, NC !!
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Asheville is a wonderful place. That’s our conundrum here in NC – the Crystal Coast or the Blue Ridge Mountains.
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Hi Noelle. I have nominated you for the Sunshine Bloggers Award. 😊
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I spet some years living in Plymouth (the original one) and still have a daughter living there; she not having joined our family diaspora – one in Florida, one in Paris (although that might change) and we’re in a 220-year old farm cottage in the middle of France.
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My kids are diaspora’d too – one in Germany and one in LA. We hope to visit the one in Germany this fall (he stationed there, in the Army) and the one in LA (married) is moving back with her husband next year. Can’t wait!
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Hello Noelle—I’ve enjoyed reading your comments on Bruce Goodman’s blog and thought I would trip over here to see what you’re about. I’m a lifelong New Englander, having grown up in Maine, spent most of my adult life in Boston, and then for a time in Hull, MA before moving to New Hampshire. Of course I got to know Plymouth very well while living on Nantasket beach….all the tradition, Plimoth Plantation, etc. Small world, isn’t it! I’ll be back to read more.
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Thank you Cynthia! Nice to meet a fellow New Englander! I am currently running a series of posts entitled Summer in Plymouth. You might like them! Thanks for stopping by!
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Glad to join you here in the blogosphere!
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Thanks for stopping by my blog. I’m glad you enjoyed my post and took the time to comment. Hope you’ll stop by often, doors always open at Jean’s Writing.
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Will do. Looking forward to it!
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Congratulations, Noelle!
I have nominated your blog for the Real Neat Blog award.
More about this nomination is at
https://dearkitty1.wordpress.com/2015/10/05/real-neat-blog-award-congratulations-to-my-nominees/
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Hey, Noelle. I posted a review of you book today. A great read. Stop by if you get a chance. http://mythsofthemirror.com/2015/12/08/who-said-that-blogging-doesnt-sell-books/
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Arrived here on a journey between blogs…decided it was time to explore….lovely intro and a writer….just my niche so alas for you I’m now following you 😇
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Never alas for me – I welcome new followers and hope my posts will please. I do try to keep them short, but sometime repost (like today) when I find something I love (such as today’s on dragons). Welcome,welcome! I love Norah and Book Club Mom!
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Then all is well 😁 I love this blogging thing…well, I do now I’m sort of getting the hang of it! Finding new blogs and bloggers is a bit addictive too…I’ve yet to find one whose grumpy…which is really refreshing compared to news on tv 🙃
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Isn’t that just the truth? I get a life from fellow bloggers every day – we write about the REALLY important things: family, books we’ve read, how to write…
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Very much so….bloggers provide the balance that daily news tips the wrong way. I find them helpful too, a word of advice, support and friendship. No antagonism…it seems to be an unwritten rule that all of the negative is left outside. To me, that’s priceless 😊
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“Writer trying to find her voice” – I love that sentence!
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Thank you! I’m doing better now that I have a few books under my belt!
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That’s great.
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I nominated you. The Versatile Blogger Award
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Thank you so much, Jeyran. I am truly honored you would think of me. However, I have stopped accepting awards because I want to see them go to younger or newer bloggers, to see them on their way. HUGE congratulations to you for the award – keep going!
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Thanks for the shout out!
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am enjoying your blog 🙂
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Thank you so much! I’ll back with new stories and stuff next week!
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So, how does one contact you?
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Hi Andrew: sailingawayng@gmail.com
Pets and hugs to Danny!
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Thank you!
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Wow! I’m popular! Thanks!
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Hi,
How are you? Hope all is well.
I wanted to let you know, that I do have a new website. Please go over and check it out and please follow me and sign up with your email so you know what I am up to. Thank you so much. Here is the link: http://gigised.com/
Click on the covers and you will transported to my books. Have fun. thank you.
All the best
Gigi
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Interesting, I started writing again for the same reason – to record myself for my children to one day be able to get to know me better/remember me by when the time comes
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You’ll notice I kind of got sidetracked along the way. I’ll have to pick up the memoir pieces soon!
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Lol yup, I got most of my memoir stuff written out… but still get side tracked once in awhile 😉
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I just found your blog and was intrigued by the name of both your blog and your book – Death in a Dacron Sail. I live aboard and cruise on a sailboat while trying to write my first novel, a cozy mystery set in a marina. Sounds like you might have a sailing / boating background as well. Looking forward to following along with your blog.
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Thank you, Ellen. Yes, I do sail although not as much as I’d like. I bought a 17 foot frisky lady with a friend of mine who also likes to sail. Unfortunately, the lakes around here are not always great for wind. Hope you like my blog. I do lots of different things – travelogue, book reviews, etc.
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Hi, Noelle. Just nominated you for the 3 Day Quote Challenge. Find out all about it on my blog. https://4writersandreaders.com/2018/05/13/3-day-quote-challenge-day-one/
Hope you had a lovely Mother’s Day!
Hugs,
Bette
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Hey, pleased to know you.😊
Found a way here through someone’s blog.
Looking forward to explore your blog more.😊
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Hi! Thanks for finding me I hope you enjoy my blog – it’s sort of eclectic but reflects what I like!
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I liked it.
I hope you’ll like my blog too. 😊
Blessings.🌸
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I punched follow.
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Xxx 😊
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I was wondering if you accept book review requests?
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I don’t but suggest you apply to Rosie Amber’s book review site, where books are accepted for review. I select books from her list for review~
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Awesome, thank you so much!
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So glad I found your blog I enjoyed it Mrs. Noelle I hope you are doing ok this is herashio if you remember me from the avid program
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Herashio! I am SO happy to hear from you! How are you doing? You can email me at sailingawayng@gmail.com
🙂 🙂
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