The other day a friend who lives outside of Detroit sent me a photo of part of her city from the sky at night. The caption said they hoped everyone liked the photo of their “small town.”

I texted my friend back. “Um…that isn’t a small town.”

And maybe I say that because the small town mentioned has 24,500 people in it.

The collection of towns my family and I moved out of in 2020 had between 12,000 and 15,000 and that was three small towns over two states that ran into each other.

The place I live now in is what I would call more a “village” than a “small town” but it is known as a small town. We have 454 as of 2022.

The characters in my books all live in small towns similar to the ones I lived in for almost 20 years with my family. They are a little bigger than where I live now, in other words. They probably are around the sizes of the town I lived in before we moved here, which by itself, without the other towns running into it, had a population of about 3,400.

In the Spencer Valley Chronicles, Molly Tanner and her family and friends live in and around Spencer, Pennsylvania.

In the Gladwynn Grant Mystery books, Gladwynn Grant moves from the fictional town of Carter, N.Y. to the fictional town of Brookstone, Pa.

Brooks one is probably about the size of a town near me that has about 2,700 in it. It’s the county seat of the county next to us and in my books, Brookstone is the county seat of Marson County, Pa.

Yes, all of my books take place in Pennsylvania, but that’s because that’s the state I know the most about.

The small towns in my books have hardware stores, diners, flower shops, supermarkets, and, most importantly, cute little coffee shops.

Gladwynn’s favorite coffee/bookshop is Brewed Awakening, a name I stole from a coffee shop that used to be located near where I live now and grew up. She loves to go there and visit with her friend Abbie Mendoza and choose a book from the bookshop in the back.

So I wonder – how small or big is the city or town you live in?

Is it as small as mine?