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Elizabeth “Lisa” Ludwig is a USA Today bestselling author and speaker known for her charming historical fiction and cozy mysteries. The Sugarcreek Amish Mysteries book series has a new movie that made its way to the screen in, “Blessings in Disguise,” that premiered April 20, 2025, on UPTV. The movie premiers again on June 15 and afterwards will be available on all steaming services.

 

Produced as a combination of two books, “Blessings in Disguise” brings together the talents of two accomplished authors—Nancy Mehl, who penned the first book in the series, and Southeast Texas author Elizabeth Ludwig, who wrote the second, “Where Hope Dwells.” The film stays true to the spirit of the cherished mystery series while weaving together a compelling and faith-filled narrative.

 

Although this feature begins with Ludwig’s happy ending, the reader must go back and discover the trials and tribulations of our protagonist’s journey from reader to published author.

 

“You know, I’ve always been a reader,” she said. “But when the book ended, the story didn’t end for me. I always kind of continued the story in my head, and I was doing that in church one day, and not realizing that I was doing it until it got to the very end of the sermon. I realized that I had not heard a word because I had just been daydreaming stories, and I felt very convicted by that.”

 

Afterwards, she approached the altar and asked God for forgiveness for not being present during the sermon.

 

“I don’t know what to do with these stories that are constantly filling my head, I prayed,” she said. “Shortly after that, I heard about a conference taking place in Houston, and it was the American Christian Romance Writers who later became 

The American Christian Fiction Writers. A friend of mine recommended the organization and advised that I go to the conference. I went to this conference and shared what had brought me there. Several authors and other ladies prayed with me, prayed over me, and the Lord gave me a verse there in Habakkuk, which I always laugh about that, because it’s one of those books in the Bible where your pages stick together because you never open your Bible to that part.”

 

Habakkuk 2:2-3 states, “And the Lord answered me and said, ‘Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so that a herald may run with it.’ For the vision is yet for an appointed time; it speaks of the end and does not lie. Though it may seem to linger, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay.”

 

“Write the vision,” she said. “That was the part that really stopped me, because these were daydreams in my head. I felt like God had spoken very clearly to me to start writing. I started writing on an ancient computer, and finished my first manuscript, sent it off to probably 20 different publishers, and received 20 very nice letter rejections, saying ‘thanks, but no thanks.’

 

But Ludwig believed that rejection was protection.

 

“I’m going to figure out what is it that’s missing in my book that I need to work on,” she said. “So, I signed up for online classes and attended writer’s workshops, and I quickly discovered I was still writing. I finished almost seven complete manuscripts during this time and sent several more out. After a long period of rejection, I realized I had to unlearn some things. I took about two years and did nothing but write and learn. I hired an editor that someone had recommended to me to kind of teach me how to write fiction and joined a trusted writing and peer review group.”

 

It took Ludwig seven years to perfect her craft before she sold her first book,

 

“Like the Lord was saying, ‘I did tell you that it was going to tarry, that it was for an appointed time. So just wait on it,” she said. “I would say to anyone who wants to take up writing. It is, it is the most challenging, difficult, rewarding thing you can do, but there’s no magic formula other than persistence and pursuing something and doing everything you can to learn the skill. Because this is a skill and you must be thick skinned- I mean, I had to learn to take criticism.”

 

Ludwig sold her first book to Barber Publishing in 2006 and it was published in 2007.

 

“Since then, I’ve released at least one new book, every year,” she said. “There was a while, for several years, kind of around 2014, I put out seven books and thought, ‘I’m never doing that again.’ Now, four of them were full length, and then the rest were novellas, but it was way too much, and I was way too stressed out.”

 

In order not to lose her love of writing to capitalism, she decided not to turn her writing into a business.  

 

“I wanted it to be something that I still enjoyed,” she said. “I aimed to take time to pour into each book instead of churning out chapters and not taking the same care and attention and to make sure that I was being authentic. So, I’m going to continue writing until I don’t have anything else to say.”

 

Ludwig said God provided new opportunities in the form of The Sugarcreek Amish Mysteries.

 

“I think the series now is 32 books for what was originally intended to be 20,” she said. “The only thing I can attribute it to is just the popularity of these books. People loved the characters; they loved the town. They love the mysteries but there’s no dark, heavy mystery, like there’s no murders. If there was, it was like a century-year-old murder, unsolved case that maybe something that new comes to light, but for the most part, it’s very gentle mysteries.”

 

Ludwig says she lives vicariously through her characters.