How My Daughter’s Greatest Challenge Became a Gift
My firstborn didn’t smile for months after she was born. She didn’t laugh or interact. But she was very aware of her environment—watching, with somber brown eyes, everyone who crossed her path. Because of this visual and auditory stimulation,
An Unexpected Gift
There is a sense of detachment—almost timelessness—about our new homeplace in the Driftless Region of Wisconsin. I used to have stress dreams about Ebola, but now I have stress dreams about getting my wash in off the line before it
Surviving A Newborn Novel
My best friend called about four days after the birth of my novel, just as she had called after the birth of my daughter seventeen months before. “How are you?” she asked. I had carried my cell phone out on the
We’re Going On A Novelmoon
On Tuesday, my husband and I leave for our novelmoon. What’s a novelmoon, you ask? Well, it’s kind of like a babymoon: a trip a couple takes to reconnect before the birth of their child (my novel, in this case).
How a Literary Idol Became My Friend
Four years ago, I attended the Southern Festival of Books in Nashville. I wore my big girl glasses, which I thought might make me look older and more literary, and my artsy best friend—who’d taught me how to color inside
A Peek at My Publishing Process — deadlines, teething children, kapp hunting and all!
This week, I'm honored to be hosted on Tyndale House's blog about the past eight months since I began the publishing journey with The Outcast ~ my modern retelling of The Scarlet Letter! My excerpt from their blog: The morning of my conference call with Tyndale,