Tell us about your
salvation experience.
My mother was a believer when I was born. Daddy came to
faith when I was about nine months old, so I don’t remember a time when Jesus
wasn’t the centerpiece of home life. By the time I have conscious memory, Daddy
was a deacon and Mother was running everything the Southern Baptists allowed a
woman to run J.
I don’t honestly know when I came to faith. I remember going up one Sunday
night after church and asking Reverend Leininger if I could attend the classes
he held on the fundamentals of the Christian faith. Everyone he baptized had to
take those classes, and while I don’t remember the classes themselves, I
imagine that it was at some point during those studies that I became a
Christian. Reverend Leininger had explained that he would ask us to speak our
name when he baptized us, and that when we did that, we were offering our lives
to Jesus. As far as a nine-year-old can understand it, I did understand the
gospel and the significance of what I was doing that day.
You’re planning a
writing retreat where you can only have four other authors. Who would they be
and why?
I would ask writers who write in a genre different from
mine, because they would encourage me to get out of my “rut” and think in a new
way about plots and characters. I’ve had this experience before, and it was
very rewarding. I’d probably want a romantic suspense author, a mystery author,
someone who writes thrillers, and someone who writes science fiction/fantasy.
And if possible, I’d want half the group to be men. Again, I’d want to tap
minds that work differently from mine, because I think that encourages
creativity.
Do you have a
speaking ministry? If so, tell us about that.
The first time someone asked me if I did public speaking, I
was really surprised, and my knee-jerk reaction was to say no. But my
then-husband (who died of cancer in 2001) encouraged me to consider it. I’d
shared my testimony at church and taught women’s Bible studies, and so I began,
very slowly, to say “yes.” Over the years I’ve developed a menu of about a
dozen topics and lectures for church groups, writers conferences, and civic
organizations. The most frequently requested talks this past year were “A
Patchwork Life,” which is my personal testimony (illustrated with quilts in my
collection), “Calico Trails,” which talks about how pioneer woman inspire my
fiction (and is also illustrated with antique quilts and tops), and “Quilts and
the Sod House Experience,” which is based on my recent non-fiction book Home on the Plains: Quilts and the Sod House
Experience. I also teach writing workshops on various aspects of writing. I
limit the speaking part of my ministry to a couple of times a month.
What is the most
embarrassing thing that has happened to you and how did you handle it?
Oh, my. Let’s just say it involved a surprise that backfired
when my husband unexpectedly brought his boss home for lunch. We all laughed.
Later. I still laugh, and it happened over thirty years ago.
People are always
telling me that they’d like to write a book someday. I’m sure they do to you,
too. What would you tell someone who came up to you and said that?
“That’s wonderful! Go for it!”
Tell us about the
featured book.
Valley of the Shadow (a Christy Award finalist) was inspired by the incredible
sacrifice and bravery of the Christian Dakota Indians who risked their lives to
save their white brothers and sisters in Christ during the Dakota War of 1862.
My imaginary characters, Daniel Two Stars and Genevieve La Croix, struggle to
adapt to the changing culture around them. Just when they’ve taken steps to
find a way to survive, the war erupts and everything they thought they knew
about God is challenged.
Please give us the
first page of the book.
How he had
managed to get that beautiful Ellen Leighton to marry him was beyond the realm
of logic for anyone who knew Simon Dane. Never, people said, were two young
people more unsuited for one another.
Even though
she was only seventeen, Ellen Leighton was the very definition of a lady. Why,
hadn’t her own grandfather fought under General Washington himself? And wasn’t
it her grandfather on her mothers’ side who had had a commission from King
George? Certainly Ellen’s parents had nothing approaching marriage to the likes
of Reverend Simon Dane in mind when they sent their daughter to be educated at
Miss Bartlett’s finishing school in Ipswich .
Ellen had gone reluctantly, but came home a vision of manners and grace that
made the entire village proud. She poured tea like royalty. And those gray
eyes! Well, any young man upon whom those alighted felt a thrill down to his
elegant riding boots.
And so,
when the practically middle aged and almost homely Reverend Simon Dane arrived
to temporarily fill the pulpit at Christ’s Church, imagine everyone’s amazement
when Ellen Leighton looked upon him with something more than passing kindness.
“He has a
mind, Mother,” Ellen had explained firmly. “A girl can’t always be a girl. I
enjoy flirting as much as anyone, but when it comes to marriage, I want a man
with a mind; someone I can talk to late into the night, for all those long
years after youthful passions fade.”
“Ellen!”
Mrs. Leighton scolded, blushing.
Ellen’s
gray eyes crinkled up at the corners. “It’s all right, Mother. You needn’t act
so shocked. Miss Bartlett’s gave me a very thorough education in every manner
of life.” Her peach-colored lips parted in an almost impish grin …
How can readers find
you on the Internet?
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