Before breaking into publishing, Belva Plain wrote short stories for magazines while raising her three children. She sold her first story to "Cosmopolitan" at age 25 and "contributed several dozen to various women's magazines until she had three children in rapid succession." Her first novel, "Evergreen", was published in 1978. It topped the "New York Times Bestseller List" for 41 weeks and was made into a TV miniseries. "Evergreen" followed the character Anna, "a feisty, redheaded Jewish immigrant girl from Poland in turn-of-the-century New York, whose family story continues through several decades and three more books.".