Etoile Sweeney's Storefront

About the Author

The author has lived in several southwestern states: Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. She has also lived in Arkansas and Louisiana and has vivid memories of all of them.

She remembers going from Arkansas to Arizona as a young child and finding the changes startling—from lush green to desert sand, with its purple mountains, and shimmering distances. Her Arizona school, she remembers, had a large enclosed patio with green plants and benches where children could take their sack lunches and enjoy the scenery and skylight over head. It had an atmosphere of enchantment with its newness, unexpected beauty and its very special first grade teacher. Arizona then, has always had its fairy tale atmosphere, as is befitting any childhood memory. New Mexico’s Rio Grande Valley was home during part of elementary school and High School. It holds many good memories, including two years of college in Silver City.

She taught school for several years in several of those states, after getting her degree. She has a host of rewarding experiences with children—Southern, Black and Hispanic. Their endearing personalities left indelible impressions in her mind.

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When the Sweeney family left Clint, Texas near El Paso, they returned to Arkansas and bought 180 acres atop Crow Mountain. Here, they were very near the setting of this story, Indian Summer Harvest.

Etoile Sweeney retired while teaching at Russellville, Arkansas and is still living on Crow Mountain. She has written many stories before and since retiring. She likes to say that her first story was written when she was ten or eleven in a split-level (4th/5th) grade classroom in Anthony, New Mexico. That worthwhile endeavor took place while the teacher was “having class” on the other side of the room.

Etoile put her fifth grade classmates in an adventure story, which she read to them at quick intervals snatched during the day while they leaned into the aisle or squatted where they could hear. She laughs and comments on the very understanding teacher, “Because we were reading something, and were not too noisy, she went on helping the fourth grade with their work, and let us fifth graders be.”

“Those stolen moments of plotting and planning the characters and their actions in the plot still warm my heart. Then, the quiet laughter and sudden exclamations of applause were all I wanted from my audience. It fueled my determination to write books.”


In town and country, in city, or farm,
Everyday life goes on and on.
The dawns and sunsets of all the years,
The laughter or the bitter tears
Are lived in stories for all to read.