Category / Writing

by Michael

Public Library’s Writing-Related Events

If you are interested, the Harold Washington Library Center will host several authors this month, one event being in connection with the Columbia College Chicago Fiction Writing Department.  Among the programs remaining are an event featuring Joyce Carol Oates, discussions with Jennifer Egan, Audrey Niffenegger and Regina Taylor, as well as readings and conversation with, again, Audrey Niffenegger, Karen Tei Yamashita, Gerard Woodward, and Alexis Pride.  Visit chicagopubliclibrary.org for more information.

Branch Photo

by Michael

Your Feedback On My Survey

In a few days, I’ll mark my first blogging year, and I think one of the best ways for me to continue blogging is to ask you good readers a few questions.  Please list your answers in the “comments” or email me at michael DOT intersections AT gmail DOT com.  I got this idea from Michael Hyatt, CEO of Thomas Nelson publishers, who blogs here.  I’d love to have your answers to any or all of the following:

  1. How did you hear about my blog?
  2. How long have you been reading it?
  3. Which of the three (faith, writing, or relationships) appeal to you and why?
  4. Have you recommended Intersections to someone else?
  5. How can the blog be better?
  6. Do you consider yourself the “commenting” type? 
  7. What do you think of the blog’s appearance? 
  8. Do you have any comments or recommendations for me?

This is the part where you answer, folks.  Press that comment button or send me an email.  I appreciate it, and I hope to implement some of your good feedback soon.

by Michael

Interview With Marita Golden

I recently read The Word: Black Writers Talk About the Transformative Power of Reading and Writing and contacted Ms. Marita Golden for an interview.  She graciously accepted and I’m pleased to bring you her answers to my questions.  There are other interviews, to the right, in the Writing and Reading “neighborhoods”.  This book is worth reading, soaking up, and holding onto.  Ms. Golden has several other published works that the same can be said about.  Now, the interview.

MW: Your book presents author interviews and one of your common questions is about childhood influences and early beginnings for those writers as readers.  Talk about your early beginnings as a reader and writer. 

MG: I grew up in a home in which my love of reading and writing was
nurtured and encouraged. My father and mother both influenced my
writing life in different ways. My father was a great storyteller and
his stories to me often told at bedtime, were about famous heroines
from Black history such as Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth so I
learned early on what a hero was and what a hero or heroine did. My
mother told me early on that one day I would write a book and that was
crucial in terms of my development of a creative identity.

MW: The Word exposes us to writers today who are telling great stories.  Who are some writers from before, perhaps writers too quickly forgotten, who readers need to find, remember, and keep reading?

 MG: Anne Petry is one of my favorite writers from the 40’s and 50’s she
is most known her novel THE STREET but I am a huge fan of her second
novel THE NARROWS which is rich and deep and very satisfying to read
as well as her short stories.

MW: Your latest book reminds me of the continuous gift of Gumbo, an earlier anthology you edited with E. Lynn Harris.  In that great book, along with this current one, you’ve brought together astounding artists.  Tell us about your process of editing them.  I imagine those works were full of gifts for you.

MG: In the Word I wanted to shape the interviews so that the
conversations became a commentary not only on the writing and reading
life of the writer, but also an invitation into that kind of life for
the reader. It was important to also get them talking about the issues
of literacy facing the Black Community.

MW: Speaking of gifts, how did you establish the Hurston/Wright Foundation?  How did that vital work come about?

MG: I established the Hurston/Wright Foundation 20 years ago with Clyde
McElvene as a way to support what I saw as a fantastic flowering of
creativity among Black writers. I wanted to create an institution that
would give Black writers the kind of support I wished I had had as a
younger writer-workshops, awards, recognition, community. The
foundation has opened doors and created possibilities for a whole
generation of writers and I am just glad that I was chosen to do that
work.

MW: You’ve shared this answer in pieces throughout interviews in The Word, but tell us why reading is important to you.

MG: Reading is important to me because it is a passport into the lives of others and the unique wisdom, intelligence and creativity that they possess. Reading also gives me experiences that I have not and may not ever had and increases my empathy for and connection to others.

MW: What are you reading these days?  

MG: I am reading a wonderful memoir called THE MEMORY PALACE and a
collection of short stories by Nadine Gordimer.

MW: Can you recommend particular writers who are must reads for children?

MG: Eloise Greenfield is a must!

MW: You have communicated in multiple forms and continue to do so.  How do your roles–as writer, teacher, speaker, and editor–intersect?  What enables you to do all you do?

MG: I find that writing teaching and speaking are all interrelated in
that that enable me to connect with others which is one of my favorite
things to do.

MW: How can readers of my blog learn more about you and your work?  

MG: They can go to www.maritagolden.com.

Questions for you, blog readers: What are you reading?  What have you just finished or are looking forward to reading?  I just closed Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake and am taking in long amounts of the elegant and massive The Warmth of Other Suns.  I am also reading Souls in Transition.

by Michael

Would You Suit If I Wrote A Book About You?

One of last year’s bookish blockbusters is subject to a suit.  I haven’t read The Help by Kathyrn Stockett.  I know folks who have.  I’m waiting to get and read it for reasons I’ll bring up after I read it. 

But I read this article from a NYT blog.  An inviting quote into the piece’s scope is:

There are few topics in the South more complicated and fraught than the one between white families and black women who raise their children and keep their houses clean. The South, and high society in particular, is governed in large part by what is left unsaid, and this is particularly true on the topics of race and family.

This article has me thinking about the dangerous relationship between a writer’s resources for writing, on the one hand, and the responses of the people and situations which are those resources on the other.  I suppose I’m also spinning the words of this NYT post with Tuesday’s episode of The Good Wife (my current favorite show), along with having recently been forced by my wife to watch The Social Network.

That preface offered, fiction is fiction.  Made up.  Created.  From the imagination.  Or from some combination of the imagined and the real.  But it’s fiction, and that means that the literary display between the covers is accountable first to the author’s imagination.  The inimitable Richard Wright said that the writer should only bow to the monitor of his own imagination.  It’s difficult enough for a writer to be responsive to that vision.  When that vision–the result of sustained imagining–is tutored and decorated by real people and events, it’s get trickier.

Fiction is not only accountable to an author’s imagination.  It’s accountable, in ways that I suppose an audience has to detail, to the reader, to the people mentioned, even when those people are consumed inside the residence of a “work of fiction.”  Novels like The Help portray real people and real events, and writers are responsible to those folks and happenings.  In some way. 

Writers should take care in handling people, particularly writers of historical fiction.  And care is best evaluated by the people whose voices we use to tell our stories.  It’s evaluated by the people who are the subjects of our stories because those same folks are often subject to them.

So, my question, Would you suit if someone wrote a book about you, a novel about you?  If the writing wasn’t true or if the artistic expression crowded the way you perceived yourself before having paged through the published copy.  If the language was offensive or if the implicit ideas driving the story were disagreeable to some part of you.  What would you do?  How would you think?  Just a question.

by Michael

In the Margins, pt 3

I started writing a bit about my editing process for the current Work In Progress.  If you’re interested in reading the previous posts, click here for pt 1 and here for pt 2.  I’m still working on the WIP.  My editor got the revision two weeks ago and last week emailed me several questions she needed answered or issues I needed to address before she finished with the line edit. 

I thought two things when I read her email.  The first was how pleased I am to have connected with an editor who understands my manuscript (i.e., ms) and who can look at the ms for what I’m hoping for without editing it into something else.  That’s a rare find from what I can gather in the collective reflection of wannabe published writers on the internet.  It’s hard to capture someone else’s vision for a project when your role is to critique it, even though critiquing work requires that you grasp it. 

The second thought was how long, windy, and difficult the path to publishing can be.  I am gladdened to read of shorter routes for the author who wrote that first story, met an agent at some function completely unrelated to publishing, talked about that one exceptional piece while spinning a chocolate martini in one hand, and left the evening with the agent’s invitation to submit pages, only to have that agent represent them to a book deal with a great publisher.  That’s the process for most writers.  And inside that process is the gritty nitty work of fighting words, punching away at an idea, asking characters the same questions when they have yet to answer, focusing on the plot, sharpening that focus when it’s become unclear, and on and on.

My story is stronger.  I feel like it is.  My editor says so as well.  I believe us both.  And I’m looking forward to last edits, which really aren’t the last edits since the agent in my future will have a revision letter waiting for me and since a publishing in-house editor will also offer edits for the ms when it’s purchased. 

So, I’m getting used to editing.  I’m getting used to editing while thinking about that other project, to say nothing of that other life of mine which includes church-leading, teaching, husbanding, and parenting.  I’m editing while trying to balance garbage removal, toy collection, sermon preparation, and diaper changing.  Perhaps that’s the summary of the whole thing.

by Michael

Why I Will Visit The President’s House

First, I should tell you that I’m the guy who insisted that my wife and I visit a rice plantation turned bed and breakfast.  Note that as I bring my latest find.

I read this article on The Root and heard for the first time about the President’s House.  The House is the first White House, if you will, across from the Liberty Bell, where our nation’s first two Presidents lived.  John Adams moved after two years to DC.  George Washington governed from there for eight years but broke up his time in Philadelphia with trips to Mount Vernon–in part to ensure that he could rotate his slaves from place to place and legally prevent their freedom.  I want to visit the place for the following reasons.

  1. The House tells a story that’s easily forgotten.  I’ve written on this blog about our country’s convenient amensia, particularly when it comes to the history of Black folks.  While it’s a part of the controversial backstory leading to this exhibit, the story of who were slaves and who owned slaves is a critical one to me personally and to our nation corporately.
  2. Access to history is completely and uniquely open.  The exhibit is accessible 24 hours a day.  It’s outside, doesn’t require admission or a visit inside hours of operation.  There aren’t many places and ways for folks to encounter history this way.  Visitors have unrestrained access to video and printed material in order to learn. 
  3. Stories surround the place.  Voices surround the place.  For those reasons, the budding novelist in me is very interested in putting my feet on the grounds.  I’ve visited places that turn up in my yet-to-be-published stories because it, somehow, helps me.  It revives my imagination.  It connects me to people I can’t see and helps me listen to stories that are powerful and neglected and scary.
  4. I love the controversy of the House.  History is complicated and messy and tricky, and I love the very idea of talking to people about the place.  I smile at the idea of finding the nearest street vendor in Philadelphia or the closest spot for tea and starting up a conversation about the President’s House.  I want to hear what folks from Philly think of the exhibit, whether they’re excited about it. 

If you’re interested in learning more about the exhibit at the House, look at this article or this site.

by Michael

Reading & Last Year’s Blog Interviews

I finished my second book for the year.  I’ve read Eula Biss’ Notes From No Man’s Land and Danielle Evans’ Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self.  They were treats and I found myself whispering thank yous to those ladies as I read! 

I hope to talk about these books later in a bit more detail, but if you’re into short stories and essays, do yourself a favor–purchase them, read them, and plan the next time when you’ll re-read them.  If you aren’t into short stories or essays–and I don’t get to read either very much–these works will entice and satisfy even your reading appetite.  I’m almost convinced enough to reimburse you if you don’t love those books.  But you’d have to take that up with my wife.

Nonetheless, finishing them got me thinking about the writers I read last year.  And I want to recommend again to you the following books, along with others by these authors.  I’m glad that these folks participated in blog interviews.  I’m keeping track of their work the best I can, and I hope you’re doing the same. 

  • Johnathan and Toni Alvarado discussed their book here, highlighting the meaning of marriage, leadership, and several strategies to strengthen relationships in general.
  • My interview with Lee H. Butler where he discussed fatherhood in compelling ways that will enrich both parents and non-parents.
  • In this post, Bernice McFadden talked about her latest novel, Glorious, as well as a few insightful comments about publishing and writers to watch.
  • Ravi Howard discusses his novel here and connects us to why we might remember history.
  • Donna Freitas talks about power, balance, and the possibility of healing when discussing her latest novel here.
by Michael

How Many Times Can I Call You By a Bad Name?

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is being reprinted and one of the main questions surrounding the upcoming unveiling by one scholar came across my ears on the radio.  Should Mark Twain’s use of the N-word be sanitized to fit audiences and readers of today and beyond?  There are a lot of posts and articles about this, and here’s one I’ll suggest, though you can find a dozen easily.

High school and college students, of whatever color and skin tone, are reading the 200+ references to Black folks and first-nation peoples in the novel, constantly employing the word that’s frowned upon by Black folks, Native people, and other folks.  Point a pin here: it is true that the N-word is used within the Black community with a frequency that is both constant and contested.  I’m not going there in this post.  This post is about writing and publishing.

I think the language in Mark Twain’s novel should stay the way he printed it.  Here’s why.

  1. That’s the way Twain wrote the novel.  As a to-be-published novelist I take this matter seriously.  Writing is hard.  Writing is work.  After all that fighting and researching and soul-wrenching and editing and emailing and reading tracked changes and questioning whether I should do this or something else and crossing of my eyes, I don’t want somebody else changing the words which finally get to the printed page.  Of course someone will edit my work.  I told Dawn the other day that my freelance editor is working.  My agent, when I get one, will have a revision letter.  My in-house editor will have her or his own multiple-page vision which will require another (re)writing.  So, it’s not that changing words is a problem.  The problem is that the writer goes through those steps to agree with himself of what he wishes to be printed.  I’d despise having someone change 200+ words in my novel–whatever the word or words.
  2. Language is instructive and contextual.  Twain’s language anchors the reader and student in his world or at least in his vision of a world as created for that novel.  The language sprung from his time and it teaches us, in our time, about the society around the author who was married to a Black woman, or, more appropriately, around his characters.  I read a quote from a teacher saying that that teacher would love to teach the novel but that “In the new classroom, it’s really not acceptable.”  Of course I asked the teacher in my head, what’s the new classroom and when has it ever really been acceptable in “contemporary” times?  That said, Twain’s words do teach.  The uncomfortability that lifts in that teacher’s students and in their throats is instructive.  Those things are symbolic of a problem with the souls of a reading and language-using public that so spoke of Black folk and Native people.  Last, remember that Twain’s use of his words were counter-cultural, and that goes back to my first point.  Why change them?

What do you think?

by Michael

Year To Date Letters

Maggie and David Swanson have taught me many things in the ten years we’ve known each other.  On that list is now year-end letter writing. 

Even though we’ve received these year-end missives over the course of our marriage from missionaries and random organizations, the Swansons were our first letter writers, and Dawn wanted to add the gesture this year.  She brought it up after we got a slew of beautiful greeting cards, several with snapshots of children, and, well, letters.  I think she’s more interested in sending people a picture of our boy than anything.

If you’re unfamiliar with the communication, it’s a letter, usually typed, that captures a person or family’s year.  It’s like a one-page summary of life lived. 

We are writing ours.  That’s important.  Because when we do things, it’s not like one of us doing things.  Dawn is taking a part.  I’m taking a part.  I’ll inevitably edit both parts.  And then Dawn will edit my edit.  I love to cut words when she loves to add them.  I choose a word to capture a sentence, usually her sentence, and she’ll tell me I should have included this or that recollection.  It’s going to be fun. 

She’s the type of writer who writes for a long time.  I’m the type who says I’ll work on a thing from this time to that time.  She will probably want to work on this into February, and I’ll have to remind her that we wanted it to go out at the end of December.  She’ll keep writing the same thing and may get a bit upset when I’ve offered my last feedback–because, well, my time is up for it.  We’ll compromise.  Because I’ll print the letter and start stuffing envelopes.

I’ve been thinking about my two paragraphs for a week.  I’ll write them tomorrow, I think.  It feels like querying for a novel, boiling down an entire story to a pitch paragraph or two.  It already feels like next year we’ll decide that quarterly updates are best, but who has time for that?

Do you write these letters?  Why do you do it?

by Michael

World Book Night

I read an article from the Guardian the other week about an upcoming night where writers and non-writers will giveaway a million books.  The purpose is to get books into the hands of people who want them.  So folks with books are giving books to those who want the books they have. 

When I read the story, I appreciated the plain and simple way the organizers of the Book Night talked about the event.  People give away a book they’re excited about to someone who they think will enjoy it.  I love the act of giving and when you put giving with the emotions excitement and enjoyment, the result is something as creative as World Book Night.

If I were one of the folks giving books away, I’d probably give titles like The Red Tent, Invisible Man, Let Your Life Speak, Someone Knows My Name, Half Of A Yellow Sun, and The Inward Journey.

Take a look at this if you’re interested in the story.  What books would you give away if you were participating in something like the Book Night?

by Michael

In The Margins, pt 2

When I make comments on student’s papers–they are submitted as printed pieces of paper–I underline sentences or phrases.  I scribble notes on the right side and react with one or two words on the left side.  I usually write a quick summary at the end of the assignment, basically thanking the student for the work and pulling my feedback together. 

I got that from Scottie May at Wheaton because she always “thanked” us for the work we did.  I thought that was so intriguing that I started doing that when I taught ministry classes in the church, eventually doing the same in the VFCL program at Garrett-Evangelical, while growing in appreciation for what work I was reading.

One comment that has come up in the margins of my own work-in-progress is about the story’s pacing.  I’m learning that anything and everything that slows the pacing disrupts the reader’s experience.  And the reader’s experience is what the story is all about.  Here are a couple things I’m learning in those margins about pacing as I revise the WIP.

  1. Too much description slows the pace.  All those overwritten phrases and those poetic lines that may sound good to me, stops the movement.  Saying too many things about other things happening outside of the major plot is bad for a novel’s pace.
  2. Too many words changes the pace.  My editor, and my early readers too, said that “Less is More.”  I believe the editor wrote, “Less really is more, Michael.”  Use less words because too many words, rather than better pinning down the story, complicates it unnecessarily.  A story with the wrong words creates clutter.
  3. Too many characters crowds the story.  I’m told that for every character the reader is asking something like, how essential is this person?  Or saying, “Maybe I should hold on to this person because I don’t know what he’ll do or where she’ll take the novel.”  When there are too many people mentioned, readers can’t keep track.
  4. Keeping time is essential to maintain pace.  My story takes place over the course of five months.  But before my editor got to it, I included very little to mark the movements in time, to help the reader move from one week to another.  You could easily be confused if you weren’t in my head!  Part of revising for me has been about ordering and reordering scenes while including time stamps, explicitly or implicitly, so that following the story is actually possible. 
  5. Tightening the story means cutting the story.  I hate saying goodbye.  I even leave parties and people’s homes without telling them I’m leaving because I don’t like saying goodbye.  The same goes for me and my words.  When I write, I think my words are the best things I’ll ever type.  That makes it very hard to cut them.  And I mean to really cut them, to delete them.  Not to save them for something else or for the next WIP.  Beccause there is no next.  There is only the story I’m telling right then.  When those words go away, it hurts.  But I have to delete them to tighten and sharpen and focus the story.  It’s hard to believe that one of the best things for writing a novel is deleting words.

If you’re interested in In The Margins, pt 1, click here.

by Michael

Interview with Donna Freitas & Book Giveaway

Several months ago I read This Gorgeous Game and I contacted Donna Freitas to see if she would conduct a blog interview.  She graciously accepted.  As I told her, this novel was a treat to read.  It was an engaging, well-written story that covers a challenging topic.  It’s accessible for young readers, meaning youth and young adult readers, but the issues inside the covers are ones that anyone can relate to.  Here’s the cover flap copy:

Seventeen-year-old Olivia Peters has long dreamed of becoming a writer.  So she’s absolutely over the moon when her literary idol, the celebrated novelist and much-adored local priest Mark D. Brendan, selects her from hundreds of other applicants as the winner of the Emerging Writers High School Fiction Prize.  Now she gets to spend her summer evenings in a college fiction seminar at the nearby university, where dreamy college boys abound and Father Mark acts as her personal mentor.

But when Father Mark’s enthusiasm for Olivia’s writing develops into something more, Olivia quickly finds her emotions shifting from wonder to confusion and despair.  And as her wide-eyed innocence deteriorates, Olivia can’t help but ask–exactly what game is Father Mark placing, and how on earth can she get out of it?

This remarkable second novel by the author of The Possibilities of Sainthood, about overcoming the isolation that stems from victimization, is powerful, luminous, and impossible to put down.

If you’re interested in learning more about Ms. Freitas or her work, visit her website.  Here’s my interview with Professor Freitas.

You say in your acknowledgments that writing this story was a long, tedious journey.  What can you share about that journey?  Well, this was a dark story, its subject matter tough, and there are many friends and loved ones along the way who have been there for me and supported me with respect to my own experiences related to where the story came from. But, perhaps somewhat ironically, writing This Gorgeous Game was such a liberating experience. To tell Olivia’s story, and to bring her through this darkness to the other side, knowing that she would be okay and that there were so many people in her life that would be there before, during, and afterward, was pretty amazing in and of itself. My editor, Frances Foster, and everyone at FSG and Macmillan that supported This Gorgeous Game from start to finish and still now were pretty amazing, too. It’s funny (and wonderful, too) how something so dark can end up directing you toward joy eventually.

Olivia’s voice is clear and the story captures her experiences, her hopes, and some of her frustrations.  Can you talk about what helped you hear her voice and see her experience?  One of the most important aspects of This Gorgeous Game for me is Olivia’s voice. It came to me clear as a bell one day on my way home and I decided it was my job to follow it until she had nothing left to say. I think her voice is that of a girl who is stressed and scared and insecure about what she is experiencing and I hope readers can truly be in her head while they read. I suppose that is a terrible thing to wish on readers in some respects, but I want Olivia to come to life for people through her voice!

Among Olivia’s early lines is a passage about gratitude.  She wills herself gratitude and the story centers–maybe not quite centers–on her tension between thankfulness and fear, gratitude and confusion.  How did you walk that line and strengthen those tensions throughout the work?  Well, thank you for the compliment about the tension. I’m not sure I consciously tried to walk any lines, to be honest. My biggest job was to stay true to Olivia’s voice. The main thing I was aware of, though, was the fact that the reader was going to know that something was wrong and what was wrong, too, far before Olivia would ever do or say anything about what was happening to her. That meant that my job was to show the confusion that made Olivia stay silent for so long, even as she begins to fear what is really happening to her. I needed to convey the enormity of what it meant to accuse a priest of abuse, especially when he never did anything “technically” wrong—he just showed her an enormous amount of attention. This was a complicated thing to convey.

I read somewhere that you were interested or concerned about readers’ reception of your use of Thomas Merton.  What led you to use his writings and what would you like readers to know about him?  I am actually not a Merton fan, but I knew that he fell in love with a much, much younger woman shortly before he died and that they had an affair. In my mind, Father Mark (the priest in This Gorgeous Game), fancies himself as a Merton type—he is a famous writer, a priest, and in many other ways is a very private person—and he begins to see Olivia as his “M.”. I actually didn’t add the Merton parallel until after I’d finished the first draft, though.

Power is abused.  People are mistreated by individuals and by systems made up of people.  This story illuminates how that happens in one person’s life.  How do you see Olivia now that her story is written, being read, and being discussed?  How would you describe her?  Power certainly is abused all the time, and it is particularly awful (in my opinion) when someone abuses the power they have in relation to a person or a community’s faith in general, and faith in them particularly. I would describe Olivia as a totally innocent victim, a teen girl who was deeply involved in her family’s Church and faith tradition, as well as a gifted young person with lots of hopes and dreams. Father Mark preys on both these aspects of Olivia’s character, and when we are kids, we are so vulnerable in these areas of our life. I hope that people will talk about the events of the story as they happen; why it takes so long for Olivia to tell on Father Mark; what they wish would happen to Father Mark after the story is over; and also, how we can educate teens to not only be aware of sexual abuse, but the kind of abuse that is rather more elusive, that comes from the kind of manipulative, relentless attention Father Mark shows Olivia.

How do you balance your work as a teacher and your work writing?  Related to that, what kinds of connections do you see in the roles of writer and teacher?  Does one role equip you for the other?  I am not great at balancing! I wish I was better, but don’t we all need to be better? I would say that my nonfiction work (most recently, Sex and the Soul from Oxford University Press) is more directly in line with my teaching and concerns in the classroom. Almost all of my nonfiction research and writing comes from conversations I’ve had with my students or topics they seem interested in or wish they had more discussions about. My fiction in general is more personal, I think, even though I think (hope!) that it is useful in the classroom, too.

Has This Gorgeous Game come up in your classes or conversations with students?  If so, what has that meant to you?  Not yet—this is my first semester since the book came out, though. I don’t think my students even know I write novels to be honest!

I don’t know you well.  In fact, I’m only a new fan because of This Gorgeous Game.  But I’ll make an assumption to ask you this last question.  My assumption is that everyone has faith in something(s), even if faith is understood differently by different people.  Can you talk about what this story did for your faith?  You handled a bold story in a skillful way that makes me want to know how this good work worked on you if that makes sense.  Thanks for this question. Writing This Gorgeous Game was the closest I’ve ever come to an experience of grace, I think. I’ve never felt more empowered before, than when I was working on this book. Through this novel, I was able to take experiences in my own past that I’d buried somewhere deep and dark, and transform them into a story that is difficult, I know, but one about which I am proud. It has helped me to have faith in the possibility of healing even from life’s most painful moments.

What’s next for you and how can my readers keep in touch?  My third novel is coming out in September of 2011. It’s called The Survival Kit, and it’s about a girl named Rose whose mother has just died. On the day of the funeral, when her brother and father are arguing over Mom’s wishes, Rose escapes into her mother’s closet, looking at all the things her mother left behind. Hanging with Rose’s favorite dress of her mother, she finds something special that her Mom made for Rose: a survival kit. Inside the bag are items and tasks to help Rose get through this first year, and everything Rose finds inside is what ends up shaping the next twelve months. The story is uplifting and hopeful, I think! And the biggest storyline other than the items inside the kit is a romance, which I really enjoyed writing. The survival kit is based on something my mother used to make when she was alive.

People can contact me through my website, where they will find all my info!

To enter into the competition to win a free copy of This Gorgeous Game:

Post a comment offering one way we can educate teens about the dangers of sexual abuse or one way we can protect teens from such dangers.  Respond by midnight, Thursday, the 18th.