Current Projects
My Writing
How I got started:
If you are a beginning writer, perhaps you can draw encouragement from my story. You may have more experience than you realize...
Someone recently asked me, "How long have you pursued writing?" I only paused for a moment before I gave this answer--"In kindergarten, when I started reading."
The quickest way to become a good writer is to develop your reading skills. Bury your nose into a variety of genres. Find those authors who inspire you, and study their techniques. Devour writing books (Will soon be posted under Favorites/Lists).
Besides my love affair with reading, I didn't spend much time writing except as dictated by my studies in literature and a few dog-eared college blue books filled with either very maudlin or very dark poetry. When did I seriously pursue my present profession? It involves a story...
The Story:
In the fall of 1995, when our family moved to Terre Haute, Indiana, one of my new Hoosier friends talked me into cochairing a book discussion group, which met in members' homes. After one such meeting, a woman who has since become my best friend, an Irish woman I'll call Mary, lingered in my den after everyone else had left. I thought Mary just wanted to pick at the leftover hor d'ouevres, but she was still there even after the food had been put in Tupperware containers and set in the fridge.
I asked Mary if she wanted tea, and she said she didn't touch the stuff but would like a glass of water. We sat on my front porch, surrounded by trees blazing with red, brown, and gold.
"What is your first memory?" Mary asked me, in the middle of a conversation about our children.
"I don't know. I've never had to think about it."
"How pretty, not to think about it. My memory is etched so deeply into my mind, how could I not think of it?" Her eyes misted up, and in an odd way, I felt like Mary had left me and had gone somewhere else.
Then she started talking again, her voice not much more than a whisper. "It's a round oaken table, moon-shaped faces guzzling bitter tea. Cup after cup of the steamin' stuff. Asking what's to be done with the little eejit."
"What's an eejit?"
"An idiot," Mary answered, her tone implying that I was an eejit.
"They called you that?" I asked.
"What they called me wasn't the worst part. It's what they did with me that hurt so much."
We sat there until the sun dropped below the horizon and Mary had finished an amazing story. Of course I had no inkling then how much those few hours would affect my life!
For four years, I prayed about the Irishwoman's story. In 2005, God led me to capture on paper the essence of what Mary told me. With God leading the way, Mary and I traveled to Ireland. What happened on our trip, combined with Mary's memories, provides the basis for my first book, An Irishwoman's Tale.
The Collection:
Mary's story inspired "Kaleidoscope," a proposed collection of Christian women's fiction texts. "Kaleidoscope" celebrates the bond formed when friends of different ethnicities and experiences share the stories of how God has reassembled the shattered pieces of their lives.
My stories begin when a mental image grabs hold of my imagination: A young Irish girl's first dreadful memory (An Irishwoman'sTale.) Two little girls, one black, the other white, sticking toys through the holes in a chain link fence because they're not allowed in each other's yards (Unsettled Waters.) A lively young girl whose name is changed against her wishes, not once but twice. A teenaged mother, in the span of an eight-minute cab ride, trying to give her baby enough love to last for a lifetime (My Name is Sheba.) When the image begins haunting me night and day, I commit it to a computer file, begin gathering stories, and see if a pattern develops. It's kinda like working a big jigsaw puzzle!
The Books:
An Irishwoman's Tale chronicles Mary's quest to understand why she was torn from her homeland. All she remembers is an oaken table, moon-shaped faces guzzling tea. Cup after cup of the steaming stuff. Asking what's to be done with the little eejit. No matter how hard she tries, the memory stains Mary's relationship with everyone including God. It takes the crisis of her daughter's substance abuse and the urging of a new friend to propel her back to the rugged cliffs of County Clare. There, in spite of the dark secrets she uncovers, Mary experiences God's healing and glimpses His sovereign plan. An Irishwoman's Tale is under contract with Kregel and will be published in the summer of 2008.
Unsettled Waters: A Story of Deception, explores the memories of Sally Flowers, a gregarious Midwestern community college instructor. When her student is raped, Sally must decide whether to uncover secrets long buried under the murky waters of a Louisiana bayou. Fragments of hymns, spirituals, and gospel songs and images of a post-Katrina New Orleans are woven into the text. Unsettled Waters is complete and has been approved for publication by Kregel's acquisitions department.
This month, I've committed to Randy Ingermanson's snowflake method as I work on my third novel, which has the proposed title My Name is Sheba. After writing two books by the "W.H.I.M." method, I'm trying a more structured approach! Sandy Sperrazza, a woman who was sent to the Catholic Infant Home in St. Paul, Minnesota, recently shared her stories, and those of other young women she befriended in the home.
My Name is Sheba will incorporate Sandy's stories into the narrative as well as the stories of a grizzled Vietnam veteran and a Thai woman sold into prostitution by her family. The story spans a time period from The Great Depression to the 1970s and takes the protagonist from New Orleans to the Midwest and eventually on a quest to Thailand.
Here's a tentative hook for My Name is Sheba: The lively daughter of 1940s New Orleans jazz musicians risks her marriage to a conservative pastor when she helps the son she gave up for adoption bring a Thai prostitute to America. Buddhist and Christian beliefs, Eastern and Western ways collide in this women's Christian contemporary fiction text.
My Name is Sheba is the premier book of a planned four-novel series entitled "Spanning Seas and Secrets." The other proposed titles include, Samuel, Called by God, Mali, the Innocent One, and I Am a Preacher. Stay tuned for more information about these stories.
Other Projects:
But The Levee Was Dry: A Southern White Woman's Stories
Kaleidoscope: A Memoir in Fragments
Occasional "pantry stories" from Ministry & More, the organization where I volunteer on Monday mornings.
A Note to My Readers:
Through my writing, I hope to inspire you to commit your own priceless, God-given memories to paper, whether they are smooth as polished gemstones or jagged as potsherds. Through the blood of His precious Son, Jesus, God can take both types of materials and create a beautiful work of art, unlike no other in the universe. It will be your story, His gift to you.