Another book winner!

Congratulations to Joany who won a copy of The Call of Zulina by Kay Marshall Strom! I'll be contacting you by email to get your mailing address. Enjoy!

No Answers – Thoughts on Haiti

Marcia Lee Laycock writes from Central Alberta Canada. Visit her website - www.vinemarc.com

I’ve just finished reading a letter from a woman who was in Haiti when the earthquake hit and like many of the stories and images coming out of Haiti, it has left me stunned, weeping and asking questions.

Paramount among those crowding my mind is one thought – Why does God spare some and not others? Why did one man suddenly decided to leave his hotel for a “breath of fresh air” and stand on the other side of the street as the building collapsed, killing almost everyone inside? Why was that bus load of Canadians held back in the airport so that they were not in the Hotel Montana when the earthquake hit?
Why was an eighteen year old girl and another man killed on a busy Canadian highway when her car suddenly flew across a median and hit another head-on, five minutes after my husband had been at that very spot?

There are no answers to those questions, nor are there answers to the many others that plague us when disasters hit, when some are slain and others saved. The lack of answers might lead some to say, “There is no God,” or “God has abandoned us all.”

But there are other voices to be heard and heeded - like the voice of the woman who was dragged from the rubble of a building singing. Singing! And telling her rescuers there is no need to fear death because God is there. God is there. And then there are the voices of the people who gathered outside the crushed ruins of their church and prayed and sang and praised. The power of such faith is mesmerizing and awe-inspiring. They silence the voices of doubt and despair. They make all the unanswerable questions moot. God is there. Faith sustains.

Yet we, as communicators of the Gospel, need to puzzle over all the unanswerable questions, we need to wrestle with them, not so that we may arrive at any wisdom from within us, but so that our wrestling might bring us to moments of faith that echo and resonate with those we are seeing on our television screens.

Tragedies like the earthquake in Haiti open doors of opportunity for those of us who have been gifted with words or music or art, because it is at these times that people look for meaning, for purpose and for beauty in the midst of the chaos. They look to us and, as the scripture says, we must be “prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have” (I Peter 3:15). We must be able to point them to Jesus, in spite of the pain.

So as we weep, as we mourn and struggle and wrestle with God, let us dig deep into the foundations of our faith and cry out, through our art, “Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

A Post-Christmas Carol

"Out of the silence the soul startles us by telling us we are safe already, safe in our own experience, even if that may be the path of failure. Soul loves the journey itself." (David Whyte)

My stock answer when I'm asked whether I've finished my book yet, is that writing is a voyage rather than a destination. It's not an original thought and it can come across as a brush off. The irked person may well challenge you, so I've been looking for ways to illustrate how I feel the voyage of writing is maybe more important than the destination (which may well fail, if the perceived destination is publication). Last weekend gave me an example of how 'soul' (has to) love the journey.

I have come to like living in France, in Paris, but I still suffer from 'mal de pays' (homesickness) so every now and then my husband and I drive through the Channel Tunnel for an overnight stay in our nearest favourite town. I like Canterbury for the density of its history, evident in the remains of its medieval ramparts and architecture, public and private; its narrow cobbled streets. Canterbury is the headquarters of the Church of England and much of what goes on revolves around, or revolts against that. For the first time, we stayed in the Canterbury Gate Hotel, which is part of the fabric of and leased from the cathedral complex itself. It has been the hostelry of pilgrims since the days of Chaucer. We'd booked the Nightingale: a suite that slopes into one corner and is dominated by a four-poster bed that groans with protest at one's every movement. Access to Nightingale is via the first floor reception area, then its across the roof, inside again and up a narrow steep winding stairway, down a narrow steep winding stairway ... and I've forgotten the rest. The eccentricities are worth it, for the view and the tollings of the bells of the cathedral, which begins at 8 am Sunday morning and they were still ringing as we entered the 'Qire' for the 11 o'clock service.

After dumping our overnight bag, we set off into town and booked a table for later that evening at an Italian restaurant called 'Ask'. We'd been deluged with rain all the way from Paris but it stopped at Canterbury and the evening though cold was clear, so walking about was quite pleasant. By the time we turned towards our restaurant the streets were crowded with scantily-clad and noisy revellers. (Well, Canterbury is a university town). I was puzzled by the number of men in kilts knocking about - then remembered that January 25th is 'Burns Night', when the anniversary of the birth of Scotland's national poet is celebrated wherever there are gatherings of Scots - with a supper of haggis and neeps (turnips) washed down with large quantities of single malt whisky.

Despite the dark sky and crowds my peripheral vision picked up on a movement near my feet in front of the Beaney building - now used as a library. I stopped and looked. It was a young pigeon. There were two young pigeons, huddled together. One was stark alert, agitated by my stopping and my perusal. The other was still, lay on its side. The eye turned towards me was closed. It was dead. I was saddened, both for the dead bird and for the living one, left behind, alone. As we moved on, feeling helpless, I said to my husband that 'nobody should die like that' which sparked a discussion about how many do die like that and the worst of it, children, born to a short life of disease, starvation, brutality. I wasn't going to enjoy my dinner.

We ordered garlic bread as a starter. The service was not good and when the bread eventually arrived we could barely detect the garlic flavouring. It gave us the idea, however, of taking some of it to the pigeon clinging to the corpse of its sibling. When it came to the bill, the restaurant deducted the cost of the bread in compensation for the poor service. A pleasant surprise. When we returned to the pigeon with our bread offering, there was another - both pigeons sitting bolt upright and each fully alert to our presence.

I was at once reminded, in the image of these two birds sitting side by side, of an element in my novel. I can't describe this without giving something away. I can disclose that one aspect of this element is the development of a relationship between two characters that is similar to the relationship between two characters in a Dickens' novel. When the idea for this came to me, I was reminded how much I had (many years ago) enjoyed reading Dickens' works and decided to try and find the means to buy a complete set.

The next day, after the sunday morning service in the Cathedral - Sung Eucharist - we passed by the spot where the two pigeons had sheltered. There was a sprinkling of tiny white feathers and a flurry of crumbs. We'd left them 'bread given freely' (by the restaurant). I saw a parallel between that bread and that of the Eucharist in the service we'd just attended, how that too was 'bread given freely' in the form of the body of Christ.

I also remembered how, in the process of tearing our offering into manageable portions for the pigeons, two men had passed by. One of them spotted us and he made a critical remark. Why bother about two pigeons when there were so many of them? My blood ran cold. He had almost quoted from Dickens, where, in 'A Christmas Carol', Ebenezer Scrooge, approached for a donation for food for the poor, had expressed the opinion that they had better die "... and decrease the surplus population." Dickens, in these few memorable words, expressed the attitude of a part of society (of myself) that still exists today. I wouldn't have been surprised if the man on the street had shouted, "Bah!" and "Humbug!" as he continued on down the street.

There are a good number of charity shops in Canterbury. A favourite is the Oxfam secondhand book shop. It is situated further on down the street from the Beaney building where our pigeons had made shelter. We drifted into the shop and I made a beeline for the sheet music section at the back. The shop was about to close, however, we learned from the volunteer manning it, so I did an abrupt about turn and was heading back towards the exit when I noticed it, on my right. It was a small pine table. It was loaded up with books. There was a pile underneath, too. It was a set of books. It was a complete set of the works of Charles Dickens. Did my hair stand up on the back of my neck? I picked up a volume and gestured to the assistant with it. It was £12, he responded. The hairs on my neck lay down again. There were at least a dozen books. The set would cost well over £100. I couldn't afford them all and couldn't bear to split the set.

But I was mistaken. £12 was the price for the whole set! And in fact there are 26 books and very beautiful too: dark green, with ornate gilt tooling. The set was published as a special edition to mark the centennial of the death of Dickens. Each novel is introduced by a literary 'worthy'. 'Hard Times' for example is introduced by Sir Osbert Sitwell. All carry the original illustrations by Phiz. Inside two of the novels I found a loose sheet, which adds details to the novel such as the personal circumstances of Dickens when he wrote it. For certain, all the novels would have contained such sheets when the set was published.

We returned to Paris where I fully expect to live happily ever after.

Whenever I have to explain why the 'journey' of my novel is perhaps more important than its 'destination', (publication) I'll hand them a copy of this story by way of example!

"Soul loves the journey itself."

Ann Isik
writing The Laurel Grove Mysteries, book one, 'Flint and Feather'
http://blog.annisik.com/

Crazy About your Children

By Nick Daniels

I once read that besides their basic needs, children need at least
one person who's crazy about them. That thought hit me right between the eyes. Was I crazy about my children?

I love my two boys with all my heart, really, but sometimes I would like to ship them to Siberia (especially when I’m trying to write and they jump over my laptop--oh, here they come!).

In Bringing Up Boys, Dr. James Dobson tells it how it is: "There is 
something especially challenging about boys. Although individual temperaments vary, boys are designed to be more assertive, audacious, 
and excitable than girls are." Besides these characteristics, my kids can be disorganized, forgetful, and extremely loud.
I may hope things will improve as they grow up, but as far as I remember, I was "more lovable" as a kid, than as a teenager.

So I started looking for ways to 
feel crazy about my sons.

A brainstorming session brought up all kinds of ideas:

Try to think of them as cuddly babies; repeat the mantra phrase "I am crazy about them" 876 times every day;
pray and fast for a "supernatural fatherly craziness;"
look for examples in other father-son relationships.

This last idea had the most potential. However, none of my friends
had kids of my sons’ ages. Moreover, my dad was not crazy about me, so I 
lacked a good model.

What about my heavenly Father? I began reading 
my Bible for clues on how God is crazy about his children.
Two things struck me out. First, God made the decision to sacrifice Himself for us so we would become his children (1 John 3: 9, 10). 
Second, he delights himself in having an intimate relationship with 
us—the Bible says that God rejoices over us! (Isaiah 62:5).



My problem was that I had it all wrong in my mind. I thought I was 
sacrificing a lot of things for my children (like investing money in 
them instead of a sports car). The truth is that I was not giving 
them my time and attention. Parents like to think they don't have a favorite child. We may say 
that we love them all the same, but our actions send the opposite 
message.

When I started sacrificing my time to just be their dad, things changed.

It’s the same for the God who is crazy about us. He could not enjoy a close relationship with humanity because of sin. But Jesus, for the joy set before him, endured the cross, earning us the right to 
approach the throne of God (Hebrews 12:2).



I now enjoy my two boys as often as I can. Yes, they are still loud and disorganized. But they are fun and brilliant. You know, I feel like hanging out with them right now. 
I'd better go check what they’re up to.

Nick Daniels is a writer who works from home, so he can spend more time with his family. If the kids are at school, Nick might be found at Starbucks drinking a Frapuccino. Visit his site at www.nickdanielsbooks.com

Australia Day

Yesterday, we celebrated.

Millions of people around our country started up their barbecues and joined family and friends in honour of Australia Day. People everywhere had a wonderful time as we told jokes, ate food and remembered what that day means for us.

Right across the nation, people stuck flags on their cars, threw lamb chops on the barbie and ate till they were sick. Some watched cricket, others headed to the beaches. But they all had one thing in common.

A love of Australia. And a good time.

On the 26th January, 1788, Captain Arthur Phillip landed in Sydney Cove. The raising of the Union Jack symbolised British occupation of this country.

It wasn’t until 1826, however, that Governor Macquarie proposed our country should be called ‘Australia.’

So in honour of yesterday and because I can’t get the tune out of my head...here’s our National Anthem.



AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL ANTHEM

Australians all let us rejoice,
For we are young and free;
We’ve golden soil and wealth for toil;
Our home is girt by sea;
Our land abounds in nature’s gifts
Of beauty rich and rare;
In history’s page, let every stage
Advance Australia Fair.
In joyful strains then let us sing,
Advance Australia Fair.

Beneath our radiant Southern Cross
We’ll toil with hearts and hands;
To make this Commonwealth of ours
Renowned of all the lands;
For those who’ve come across the seas
We’ve boundless plains to share;
With courage let us all combine
To Advance Australia Fair.
In joyful strains then let us sing,
Advance Australia Fair.

So, tell me. How did you celebrate Australia Day?

Wedding Photos - Kara Isaac

As promised in my last post, today we're going to take a break from all things writing related, and have a post that is purely romance related :)

Below are just a few photos from Josh and my big day on the 7th. And if you want to know a little about how our meeting is writing related (and that I'm not just inflicting my wedding photos on all and sundry!), you can read my last post here.

I am excited - it's just really hard to look it when you're not allowed to move your face!

My sister-in-law Bec is ready to go.

Josh and his groomsmen at the church

Praying before the ceremony

Our Mums have a chat while waiting for me

It's not called Windy Wellington for nothing!

The hero in my romance

Woohooo! We made it!

Instead of the traditional 'Western' recession, we borrowed from Josh's Assyrian background and his friends and family went before us and danced us out of the church :)

Kara Isaac is just back from her honeymoon exploring central New Zealand, where she traded her wedding dress in for something a little less glamorous, but just as much fun! If you want to see more photos and know so much about the big day, that it will feel like you were there, come over and say hi at www.downundermusings.blogspot.com

Winner of Linore Rose Burkard giveaways

The winner of The Country House Courtship is Carole and the winner of Linore's ebook short story is Mary Hawkins.

Congratulations to Carole and Mary! I'm sure you'll enjoy Linore's books. Thanks!

Interview with Bonnie Grove -- Book Giveaway!

Today please welcome Canadian author Bonnie Grove. She is trained in Christian counseling and secular psychology, and is the author of the critically acclaimed novel Talking to the Dead, as well as Your Best You: Discovering and Developing the Strengths God Gave You. She and her pastor husband, Steve, have two children and live in Saskatchewan.

Valerie Comer here. I got to thinking about Bonnie and her writing. I've heard a lot about American publishers preferring books set in the USA, and I was curious about Bonnie's experiences in this regard. So I caught up with her and snagged a short interview.

VC: Both your fiction and your non-fiction have been published by American presses. Was this always your intention?

BG: I didn't go into writing with any intentions - I wanted to see if I could write, if my ideas could turn into books and if those books could make it to the marketplace somehow.

When I started I knew nothing. It was me in my basement clacking away. I completed my non-fiction, Your Best You, and turned to my first choice publisher - Beacon Hill Press. They are part of the Nazarene Publishing House - my denominational publisher. They said yes! So it had nothing to do with whether or not they were US based or not.

My fiction, Talking to the Dead, was different. I didn't know where to start or how the world of fiction publishing worked. I sent it in to a site called The Writer's Edge. Over time, several publishers asked for the full manuscript. I had no idea how to handle so much interest. What are the rules? How do you communicate with a publisher? I didn't know. I asked a Canadian colleague what she would do in my position, and she said I needed an agent (she was right!).

She sent a letter of introduction to an American agent who signed me the next day.

It wasn't intention that landed me with two US publishers and an American agent. It was, I believe, God's blessing and favor. You could have knocked me over with a feather when all this was happening!

VC: Where is your novel set?

BG: The novel is set in a small town called Greenfield. And in a city called.....The City.

I found when I tried to plunk the story down in any particular city, the city became too much of a character - it detracted from the story, which could take place anywhere. I chose to highlight the universality of the story by keeping the setting neutral.

VC: I have a hard time doing that. I guess I 'like' my settings to interact with my characters and influence them. Even when I try to remain neutral, I often find myself choosing between an American or Canadian custom.

This thought process didn't come up for you at any point? Maybe I should take lessons from you!

BG: No - there were some very small language differences my US editor and I noticed - and enjoyed talking about.

I'm guided by the story - and it's the story that dictates to me where it will be set.

Each novel I write will be different and I work out settings and other important points on a case by case basis. I'm not worried about the so called rules. I'm concerned with telling the story in an authentic manner.

Will I write a novel set in Canada? I may very well. Will I write one set in an American local? I may very well do that too. My focus is on telling the best story I can.

VC: What is your favorite travel destination? Does it ever beg to have a story situated there?

BG: I'm no world traveler - I've stuck close to home for the most part. I love exploring Canada. Three places come to mind:

The Canadian Rockies - especially Kananaskis country (south of Banff). There are spots tucked away in there that have soothed me and reminded me of to live the larger, well examined life.

A second place I love is Vancouver Island. Again, the tucked away places - My uncle helped design and build the park trails on the island, so he showed me and my family some wonderful out of the way spots. The ocean is healing to me, and it calms my sometime too-busy mind.



The third place is a wish - a hope to soon visit the Canadian maritime provinces - I spent time on islands off the coast of Maine many years ago, and I long to return to those cliffs and rocks and waters on the east coast. And yes, this hopeful trip figures into future projects. :)

Interested in a copy of Talking to the Dead? Bonnie will choose one winner (anywhere on the planet!) from the comments posted on this entry before Sunday, January 29. Please leave your email address so Bonnie can contact you for your snail mail address.

Disclaimer: Void where prohibited; the odds of winning depend on the number of entrants. Entering the giveaway is considered a confirmation of eligibility on behalf of the enterer in accord with these rules and any pertaining local/federal/ international laws.

Truth STRONGER than Fiction?

Mary is a multi-published Australian author, especially in Christian romance novels. After being published by Harlequin Mills and Boon medicals and Barbour Publishing with inspirational (Christian) romance in America, her most recent novels are being released by Ark House Press, a Christian publisher in Sydney, Australia. Book One in this new series, Return to Baragula, has been released in America with Book Two scheduled for 2010. The third in this series, Justice at Baragula will be released in Australasia in 2010. Read more about Mary and her minister husband on www.mary-hawkins.com

Already amazing stories are coming out of the tragedy in Haiti. There are stories of miraculous escapes, rescues, people who risk their own lives searching for survivors in the rubble – like the young man who risked his own life to dig a tunnel for days to reach his next door neighbour’s little girl many days after the earthquake, but also stories of people driven by desperation to looting, rioting, grabbing and doing what they can to survive. In the weeks, months and years to come there will be many, many more stories in our newspapers, magazines, on the news, TV documentaries. However I can’t help but think of all the other stories that will never be told simply because no one bothered to record them. Sadly, only a comparatively few of the multitude of good and the bad events from these days will anyone in generations to come every know. Some of course over time may be best forgotten perhaps but shouldn’t families at least know their own families’ personal stories? After everything that can be is restored once more, how many of the survivors and rescue workers will eventually write down their own private experiences for their children and generations to come.

Over the years my husband and I have talked about how sad we are that our elderly relatives never wrote down their stories for us, our children, grandchildren and the generations to come. Strange as it may seem to many in this modern era of communication such as the world has never known before, in this day of the I pods, internet, email – even blogs! – we are in danger of losing permanent records. How many of us print off an email from a friend that once would have been in a letter form? One hit on the delete button and that information is lost, gone.

A couple of years ago I had the privilege of sorting out cupboards in my mother’s house before she had to go into a retirement home. My sister and I found a wealth of old letters she had kept going back to the late 1930s after she and my Dad left their parents and families in South Australia to start a new life thousands of miles away in Queensland. There were even several from one of my grandmothers to my sister and I, written in her own hand-writing. We have always been glad that a few years ago my mother was persuaded to write down the story of that very difficult trip from Eyre’s Peninsula across the harsh outback of New South Wales. Of course, over the years we’d heard some of the stories like the time my eldest brother, then only six months old nearly died of heat exhaustion in that harsh January which I’ve recently discovered was during one of the worst heat waves ever recorded. Also some years ago, I managed to use a mini-recorder and get my father’s brother to tell me some stories of my Dad who died when I was sixteen years old. Now somehow I have to transport that old cassette to a CD – or should it be an MP3 disc nowadays!

It is a cliché we all know that ‘truth is stranger than fiction.’ Many novelists have been told by readers – yes, and even editors especially – that an incident the writer knows really happened is considered too ‘unbelievable’ in their novel. I believe truth can be not only ‘stranger’ it can be even ‘stronger’ than the novels we try to write! But the truth does need to be recorded faithfully by eye witnesses.

Have you encouraged your family members to write down their personal experiences for the sake of future generations? Have you written down your own? And let us never make the mistake of thinking or saying ‘my life is too boring.’ For those who love you, who are related to you, in years to come it may bring you and your circumstances alive for them – yes, perhaps even the difficult days and the seemingly ‘boring’ times!

FICTIONAL DREAM OR VISION-By Christine Lindsay

One morning at the end of November I paced around my living room at home in British Columbia, Canada. Wearing my fluffy pink ‘Grandma’ bathrobe, and with the phone in my ear I spoke to a travel clinic nurse. I was hardly able to believe the words coming out of my 52-year-old mouth, “I’m going to India.”

It’s true that when we place our lives completely into the Lord’s hands He really does do far more than we ask or think. The fact that I am, right now, on January 21, at this very moment in India on a writing assignment is proof of that. Nine years ago I felt the call to write. At times I felt like Noah. “You want me to do what, Lord? You want me to write books? Who’s going to read anything I write?”

But in obedience, over these past 9 years I paid my dues to the ‘writing apprenticeship’. It’s said that you’re not really a writer until you’ve written a million words. I think I’m up there by now, but the Lord did the rest. He provided writing classes, critique partners, mentors, scholarships, literary agents. This past year He validated my writing ability with the ACFW 2009 Genesis Award for Inspirational Historical Fiction. Oh how the Lord knew I needed that validation.

Because . . . after 9 years of learning the craft, after finishing two fictional novels—the latest set in India—the elusive contract for publication is still that. Elusive. I began to wonder—have I hoodwinked myself with my vivid imagination? Did God really call me to write?

A few months ago my friend Hilary started a new position with a children’s ministry that works in various places around the globe. She congratulated me on the award my novel set in India had received. Then in the next breath she said, “I wish you could come to India on the missions trip in January.”

My heart thumped. I wanted to go. After all I’d done over 3 years of research for my novel. Because of that I’d developed a fascination for that country and her people. But I had a small part time job that while it paid only a pittance, at least it afforded me a few hours each morning to write. Because I’d been called to write . . . right?

“Sorry, Hilary, there’s no way,” I said. “But if the Lord wants me to come then He’ll show me and make it possible.”

Then. Oh what a glorious literary device the word 'then' is, promising that something of magnitude is just on the horizon. THEN, after a few weeks passed, the work in the little office grew less and less and less. The day came when the boss said, “We don’t have enough work. I’m afraid, Christine, we have to lay you off.”

Usually when people hear that, they gasp with disappointment. I practically laughed out loud. Something was in the wind. In awe of who the Lord God is, I said, 'Father, you know how much I want to write for You. But if writing isn’t what you have in store for me, then that’s okay. Wherever You want me to go—I’ll go. Whatever You want me to do—I’ll do. Just use me. I'll even go to India if You want."

In the meantime I wondered, If I go on this India trip, what can I do for them? My secretarial skills have rusted like an old seized up engine. All I really know how to do these days is write a book.

Then I saw on the ministry’s website they needed volunteer writers. Thinking small, as usual, I thought I could write a couple of blog pieces or a short essay for their magazine. So I whipped off an email to the ministry's info address, convinced I'd never hear back from them.

To my surprise, the president of the ministry got back to me right away. In the midst of our incredibly fast conversation he told me, “Christine, we’ve been praying for someone who can write a book.”

You could’ve knocked me down with a feather. After I nervously cleared my throat, I felt the courage to sputter, “Ah . . . I can write a book.”

There was no funding to pay me. Like most missionaries I must raise my own support. But all of a sudden this offer had such a rightness to it. I was no longer afraid of not having enough money to pay the bills. So I said yes to the trip for this January 16th to the 30th, and the commitment to write the fascinating beginnings of this ministry's story over the next six months.

And lo and behold, that’s where I am now—-in the very warm, southernmost tip of India, Tamil Nadu. And while I'm here, I'm seeing, smelling, experiencing the place I have so long researched.

So I ask you, was the fictional dream of my novel perhaps a vision of what God wanted to do all along? Is God calling me away from Fiction? Interesting question to ponder. Either way, God has his fingerprints all over this non-fiction assignment . . . and my fictional writing career. But I'm praying these days for the Lord's clear direction.

If you want to read more about me, as a birthmother who was reunited with the daughter she relinquished to adoption, or my current writing assignment in India, or my writing journey, you can find me on my blog, www.christinelindsay.com

The Distracted Mind of a Globetrotter

by Grace Bridges

It first began to happen in my first year living in another country. I’d blink, or catch a hint of a smell, or move in a particular way, or snare a random thought. Boom! I’d be somewhere else in my mind, in a flash, snatched from whatever very ordinary thing I was in the middle of doing in my new country of residence, which at that time was Germany. The entire sensation of that other location would become as real to me as if I stood there once again. It wasn’t even necessarily a significant place; most often it was some random street that I knew well but which had no particular meaning for me, other than that it came from another life, one that was now no more. Back then, and in the years that followed, it would invariably be scenes from New Zealand that forced themselves upon my consciousness at such times.

I welcomed it. It was a breath of fresh air from the home I hadn’t yet had time to miss. And as I took short trips around Europe and returned to my home in Bavaria, those places were added to the memory banks to surface at will. Years later I shifted yet again, and stayed on the road for the best part of a year; now that I’m back in New Zealand, there is a complete pool of all my travels for these flashbacks to dip into.

It might be a modern housing estate by the sea in Ireland, where I lived for four months, or one of that fair country’s fine natural wonders: a wild, windswept beach or soaring cliff or crag of an island or ancient ruins or city streets or small towns or the home of a friend newly gained.

Or perhaps the river Danube at sunset, reflecting all the colours of an evening sky beneath centuries-old bridges and tall spires and odd-shaped pastel-plastered houses. A cobblestoned street filled with the sounds of children at play. A private courtyard at night, with neighbours’ lights glowing softly across the gap. A pair of drunken but harmless louts singing a German drinking song in the street far below. A village at the edge of a huge field, planted in strips of different coloured crops, backed by a forest of sternly pointed pines.

The city of Rome, with its cold-hearted historical remnants of an empire that lost its glory long ago, to be replaced by 50cc scooters whose drivers lash each other with their tongues. The feral cats among the ruins of Caesar’s Forum, and the lavish moss that grows between the ancient stones. The twisted river Tiber and its bridges as dusk settled.

Someplace in the American heartland, at the home of a friend I met on the internet, curled up with their dogs or cats as the case may be, talking a mile a minute about all the things that brought us together. Meeting fellow travellers, Kiwis even, on a Greyhound bus. Spending all day and all night on a train and emerging none the worse for wear. The feeling of breathlessness at the top of Pikes Peak, the endless snow of North Dakota in November, the crisp air of the Chicago lakeside, the musty smell of a slightly dodgy motel in the middle of nowhere, the jetlag that woke me at 4 AM so that I wrote a good deal of a novel in said motel before it even got light and the dark shapes of the trees across the road became distinguishable from the sky.

How about the fog from the English Channel rolling in over a cemetery full of white crosses? Townships built on impossibly steep-sided islands and cliffs, clinging to the side, hanging over? Medieval walls and fortifications and castles and keeps and moats and getting to sleep inside all of that. Canals and the Mediterranean and more islands and boats and Roman ruins and rustic villages and incredible palaces. And Paris - city of dreams, but also of beggars and hawkers. Lights reflected in the water, art at every turn, history at every corner, a different ambience in every quarter.

And Africa. How I loved your warmth that hugged me as if the air were a blanket. Your smell of dust and something wild out there beyond the settlements. A beach all to myself as the sun rises. A sea of faces asking for a story. A different sense of time. Timbuktu, that didn’t want me to leave, seen from atop a camel, or the verdant cities farther south.

Sometimes, the flashbacks only come once in a day; other times there will be several. Is it any wonder I can hardly get any work done with these things pushing into my mind like virtual photo albums?

Eyes on Haiti

This week has been crazy. Early estimates of the death toll from the earthquake in Haiti shock us. Scare us. Fifty thousand dead. Many, many more injured and homeless.

And most of us looked on from our comfortable lives, thinking about Haiti for the first time in months. Maybe years. Poverty on the doorsteps of America, but we never see, never hear about it, until there is a catastrophe to capture our interest.

I know from personal experience how small my life can get without some prodding to lift my eyes to needs outside my own circle. Without prompting, my world shrinks into a daily grind of my work, my family, my writing, my church. Stuff, big stuff goes on, but I’m self-absorbed, lost in the little world where my pride can rule.

What’s disturbing, is that this seems to be the default for so many of us. Without a significant outside stimulus, we slip into a life of smallness, self-absorption and the call to love our neighbors is lost in the process.

Think about the typical American exposed only to our evening news. America is consumed with the private lives of Hollywood and rarely hears a news story of significance beyond our borders unless it is a report on Afghanistan or Iraq. Africa and South America are forgotten. Do we really think that what a Hollywood starlet wears is more important than the poverty, HIV crisis, government corruption, or natural disaster brewing beyond our borders?

I think the answer is no. At least that’s what I want to believe. But ultimately, I fear it must be about money: a story isn’t likely to be mentioned if it isn’t able to sell ad copy. Only the most amazing catastrophe will do.

How does any of this apply to our pursuits here?

Because stories from around the world help battle the smallness of our lives. They prod us to think of peoples different than ourselves, teaching us that our narrow viewpoints need to be exploded.

Let me make a second observation. Disasters, natural and otherwise manufactured, often leave us with little more than a few moments of dyspepsia before we return to our self-centeredness. Our news reports flick from the victims of war, to the death-toll of an earthquake to an advertisement for peanut butter without a pause. We need a personal connection to make it real. And so often, it is a personal story from within the large framework of an unprecedented disaster, that takes the message home. If I know the name of a thirsty orphan crying for her mother, clutching the little doll her father worked a second job to be able to afford, I am drawn in. I care. It will be the stories of individuals facing conflict that help our hearts understand. That is the power of story. We relate to the protagonist. His or her conflicts become our own. And we are changed in the process.

Novels that bring us the problems of people far away and very different from ourselves, expand our world and make it small at the same time. Expand it by making us aware of new cultures and new worldviews. Shrink it by helping me see that every man is my brother. We all thirst. We all hurt. We all love.

So thanks to my esteemed international Christian fiction writer colleagues. Keep telling the stories that keep my eyes on the horizons beyond my little world.

Grace,

Harry Kraus

Meet Kay Marshall Strom-Book Giveaway!

LISA HARRIS: Today I’d like to welcome Kay Marshall Strom! With an upcoming release of my own set in Africa that deals with modern-day slavery issues, I am particularly interested in Kay’s book that deals with slavery in the historic setting of West Africa.

Welcome Kay. Tell us a little about yourself.

KAY: I am a writer/speaker/wife/mom/traveler/shaker-up of comfortable thinking. Topics that challenge us to think globally and outside safe parameters especially attract me. I am a Christian who is more interested in what Jesus and the Bible truly teach than in what the loud talkers among us tell us we should think. It used to be that I thought my voice was limited to writing non-fiction—which I do enjoy, by the way—but to my great joy I’ve discovered that fiction can be an amazing way to communicate. Thank you, Grace Winslow (my main character in The Call of Zulina) for teaching me this great lesson!

LISA: How long have you been writing, and how many books do you have published?

KAY: I’ve been writing my entire life, but I really began to look toward publication about twenty-five years ago. I have 36 published books.


LISA: I’m particularly interested in your story, as I used to live in West Africa. Tell me about the book you’re featuring today and especially its international setting.

KAY: The Call of Zulina is Book 1 of a three-book saga. Set in West Africa, it centers around Grace Winslow, daughter of a British slave ship captain father and an African mother. Trapped in a marriage arrangement with a pompous, disgusting white slave trader, she flees her home and ends up in the middle of a slave revolt at Zulina slave fortress. It is there that she comes to understand the horrific nature of her family’s involvement in the slave trade. Grace is forced to choose a side—slave or slaver—and to live with the consequences of her choice.

LISA: What made you want to write this story/your connection to this setting?

KAY: While I was in Senegal, West Africa, working on Once Blind: The Life of John Newton, I toured an old slave fortress and was struck dumb by a set of baby-sized manacles bolted to the wall. Shortly afterward, while researching John Newton, the author of “Amazing Grace”—a slaver turned pastor/abolitionist—I read about an English slave trader and his African wife who ran a slave business. I couldn’t help but wonder: “If they’d had a daughter, who would she be—English or African? Where would her loyalties lie?” That was the birth of this story. Grace is that daughter with one foot in each world, but who belongs in neither.

LISA: What research did you have to do for this book?

KAY: Because so many factors and players came together to make the African slave trade so horrific, I needed to do research from many different points of view—colonial, African, financial, industrial. (It was shockingly astounding to hear the righteous indignation with which white traders fought back against those who challenged them, for instance.) My research included personal trips to the “slave coast” of Africa and a subsequent trip to the Goree Island slave fortress, as well as a wide variety of reading and interviews.

LISA: What was your favorite part of writing this book?

KAY: Discovering the strength of Grace Winslow! I saw this strength and endurance exemplified by women I met in Africa—especially those in Sudan. As I read the stories of men and women ripped away from their homes and lives and forced to endure such dehumanizing circumstances, I pictured the women I met in Sudan.

LISA: The hardest?

KAY: The hardest part by far was coming to understand the searing depths of the African slave trade degradation.

LISA: This is a horrid reality that continues to this day. What are you working on now or going to write next?

KAY: The Call of Zulina is just the first book in the Grace in Africa trilogy. Book 2, The Voyage of Promise, is on the editor’s desk and scheduled for release next fall (2010), but I’m still finishing Book 3, The Triumph of Grace (due for release spring 2011). After that I will be starting another international trilogy: Blessings in India. This will follow the course of two Indian families through three generations: One—privileged, high-caste landowners—pride themselves on being descendants of first-century converts to Christianity, yet they cling to the Hindu beliefs of karma and caste subjugation. The other family, the Blessings, are despised untouchables who struggle to eke out a subsistence survival in the garbage heaps on the fringes of Indian society. The first book of this trilogy is due for release in September 2011.

LISA: What are you currently reading?

KAY: I just finished Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang. It’s a real-life saga of a Chinese family that endured three generations of violence and heartbreaking tragedy in the name of a country’s progress.

LISA: Tell us something fun about yourself that readers may not know.

KAY: One of my side proclivities is speaking on cruise ships in exchange for fun cruises for my husband and me. There is no end to the places I want to go and the things I want to see!

Now that’s a job I need to have, Kay. ☺ Thanks so much for being a part of our blog. I’m really looking forward to reading Graces’s story.

Kay has graciously offered to give away a copy of The Call of Zulina. This contest is open to any address worldwide, so leave a comment below with a way to contact you. I will draw a winner on January 30th!

To read more about Kay and her writing, please visit her website!

Winner of a Lever Long Enough by Amy Deardon

The winner of A Lever Long Enough is Marion Ueckermann!

Congratulations, Marion, I know you're going to enjoy Amy's book.

Book Review and Author Interview: Linore Rose Burkard, The Country House Courtship

Narelle here. I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to welcome Linore Rose Burkard to our blog. Today we’re giving away a copy of Linore’s new January release, The Country House Courtship (US and Canadian residents only) and a short story e-book by Linore (residents outside the US and Canada only).

Linore Rose Burkard creates Inspirational Romance for the Jane Austen Soul. Her characters take you back in time to experience life and love during the Regency England era (circa 1800 - 1830). Ms. Burkard's novels include Before the Seasons Ends, The House in Grosvenor Square and, The Country House Courtship. Her stories blend Christian faith and romance with well-researched details from the Regency. Readers experience a romantic age, where England from the past comes alive and happy endings are possible for everyone!

Book Review by Narelle Atkins

The Country House Courtship (Harvest House, January 2010) is the third book in Linore Rose Burkard’s delightful Inspirational Regency Romance series. A spirited romance for the Jane Austen soul is an accurate description for this entertaining story.

Miss Beatrice Forsythe, younger sister of Ariana Mornay, is seventeen and wants to experience her first Season in London high society. Five years earlier her elder sister married Phillip Mornay, known as The Paragon and personal friend of The Regent. Beatrice desires a similar match and hopes she can convince her sister and brother-in-law to take her with their young family to their fashionable London home in Grosvenor Square.

Whilst enjoying her stay at Aspindon House, the Mornay country estate, Beatrice is stunned by the arrival of Mr. Peter O’Brien, recommended to Mr. Mornay for the vacant Curate position in his local parish of Glendover. At the tender age of twelve, young Beatrice impetuously promised to marry the handsome churchman, and she hopes he’s forgotten the whole incident now she’s determined to marry a wealthy man of higher station. Mr. Tristan Barton and his sister, Anne, lease the Manor House neighbouring Aspindon House. The Regent enlists a personal favour from Mr. Barton, in order to confirm a date for Mr. Mornay to take up The Regent’s offer of a viscountcy. Mr. Barton catches Beatrice’s eye, and she starts to believe he could make a suitable husband.

Illness strikes and secrets are revealed, along with the true nature of certain characters during times of trial. Beatrice experiences a roller coaster ride as she discovers where her heart truly lies.

The ensemble cast of characters from earlier books in the series, Before the Season Ends and The House in Grosvenor Square, add to the authentic Regency flavour of the story. The story sparkles with fascinating plot twists and the inspirational element is artfully woven into the story. The Country House Courtship provides an interesting insight into the theology and church life of Regency England. I would recommend this book for those looking for a light hearted and exciting story set in the Regency period.

Narelle: I’m a Regency fan and I’ve enjoyed reading the three books in your series. What do you find most fascinating about the Regency period of English history?

Linore: I think it's fantastic that the Regency has so many wonderfully distinct characteristics for such a short period in history. Costume, politics, speech, manners, morals, lifestyles--not to mention that we have Jane Austen writing her masterpieces, Dickens was a child, the romantic poets were in full swing--and of course there was the Regent himself with all of his attendant scandals and jet-setting trends. I just love the whole period.

Narelle: Please share with us a few of your research tips? Have you visited the settings in your books?

Linore: I have yet to visit England, though it is high on my “to do” list! For research, I would suggest beginning with Daniel Poole's What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew. This book covers Victorian life and culture far more than the regency, specifically, but nevertheless gives a good introduction and “feel” for the century. There are scads of good online sources of information, too, such as the Georgian Index (just google the site), the websites of regency romance authors, and many period-contemporary books that can be accessed for free through Google Books. Reading period books is, for me, a great inspiration. I just thrill to the sound of the language as it was written at that time, and you can get dictionaries of commonly used words online, too; such as, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, or Grose's Dictionary.

Narelle: Do many real life historical figures play a role in your stories?

Linore: I love including the Prince Regent, Princess Charlotte, a royal mistress or two, (just in passing, to add some colour and authenticity.) And I try to include references whenever appropriate, to other real-life figures, such as Beau Brummell, or Wellington, or Napoleon. I think it helps bring the period to life, and, in the case of the Regent, it gives me an opportunity to explore and reveal a character I find intriguing and interesting, despite his many faults.

Narelle: Regency romances tend to focus on family connections, with a significant number of minor characters related to the main characters. How important was family in the Regency era?

Linore: I'm not sure I can agree that most regency romances focus on family connections, unless you mean as in pedigree; Family history, genealogy, that sort of thing. It was very important, on a social level, to have, literally, “good breeding,” a respectable family line. So in that sense, yes, family was everything. For women, their choices in life were much more limited than today, and so marriage was the key to their future well-being, so again “family” was important. Austen's novels clearly show the importance of family to social standing, and in that sense, yes, “connections” were everything.

Narelle: Yes, I mean pedigree. Regency society is very different to the egalitarian society many of us live in today. At the beginning of The Country House Courtship, Mr. Peter O’Brien is the curate in a poor London parish. How did church life in the city differ to small country villages?

Linore: Depending on which part of the city your parish was in, church life could differ significantly. Take St. George's in Hanover Square; the curate or rector there would be dealing mostly with an upper class parish, though of course the servant class was very devout, and would also have been part of it. But that is still a far different church body than the poor of St. Giles' parish, or other poorer districts of London. In the country, vicars would have likely been farming their own glebes, perhaps serving in more than one parish, which meant presiding at a service in one neighbourhood and then hurrying off to another in order to perform services there. Neighbourhood life often centred around the life of the parish, so that a curate or vicar was an integral part of the social life of a village or town, not just a spiritual authority. It was a challenge to research the workings of the early 19th church, and yet I discovered so much in the process, that it helped to fuel the plot of The Country House Courtship, too.

Linore, thanks so much for joining us today. It's been a pleasure to interview you and learn more about the Regency era.

By commenting on today’s post you can enter the drawing to win a copy of The Country House Courtship (US and Canadian residents only). For those living outside the US and Canada, you can enter the drawing to win a short story e-book by Linore. The winners will be announced on Sunday, January 24. Please leave an email address [ ] at [ ] dot [ ] where you can be reached and specify which drawing you are entering.

"Void where prohibited; the odds of winning depend on the number of entrants. Entering the giveaway is considered a confirmation of eligibility on behalf of the enterer in accord with these rules and any pertaining local/federal/international laws."

To learn more about Linore Rose Burkard and her books, please visit her website.

Narelle Atkins writes contemporary inspirational romance. She resides in Canberra, Australia with her husband and children. To learn more about Narelle, please visit her website.

Deet, Deets, and more Deets!

Ronie Kendig has a BS in Psychology, is a wife, mother of four, and avid writer. Her espionage thriller, Dead Reckoning, will release March 1, 2010 through Abingdon Press. The first book in her military thriller series, Nightshade, will hit shelves July 2010 (Barbour Publishing). An active member of ACFW, Ronie volunteers as the assistant to the conference appointment coordinator, and she also does speaking engagements.

Visit Ronie at her website or her blog.

Deets. Deets. Deets.


For those not up on cyber talk, that’s short for details. And they’ve become the bane of my existence as I write and craft compelling stories with foreign settings. Yet, they are the very lifeblood of any story world, the difference between ho-hum and WOWZERS!

My espionage thriller DEAD RECKONING (releases March 01, 2010) is set completely in India. I’ve never been to India, although I sincerely hope to visit some day. A friend asked me once why I chose India—and to be honest, it was because I needed the Arabian Ocean as the key backdrop. So I spent several weeks researching the surrounding countries. Some were too conservative. Others were simply too far away. And that’s how I settled on India.

I am now so in love with the country (yes, I know it has its thousands of gods) and the people. Although I have yet to travel there, it’s by far one of my favorite countries in the world now.

But researching a country goes beyond internet research if you want to lend vitality and life to the setting. The smells—curried chicken, rancid ditches. The feels—dirt roads, palm fronds, arid, brutal heat . . . Are the streets crowded? Littered?

So, I found books, videos, contacted people online who’d lived there. Spent countless hours perusing images and forums to learn more about the customs and experiences of those who’d been there.

This research has stirred a big desire in me to see the world. I don’t know how that will happen since I’m homeschooling my four children and writing, but I am praying God will provide a way. Right now, I’m begging him for a trip to Israel because the book I’m working on, Digitalis, Book #2 in the Discarded Heroes series, is partially set there.

Nightshade, book #1 in the Discarded Heroes, explores the Philippines. I used two missionaries who’d lived there to incorporate elements of the islands into my story. Some say that you cannot write about a place you haven’t been to. I see their point. I honestly do. But I also believe you can “piggyback” the experiences of those who have been there and bring some of the flavor of the culture and setting to your story.

So, I’d love to hear from other writers and even readers for ideas on how to authenticate international settings that you cannot or have not visited. What makes a story real to you? Or what brings it to life in ways other things can't?

Homework, Fieldwork and the Fun of Setting Research - LeAnne Hardy

On Monday Cathy wrote about her novel manuscript set in Viet Nam.  One of the fun parts of writing international fiction is the travel. My first two books were set in places I knew well because I had lived there. When I wrote Glastonbury Tor (part historical fiction, part fantasy of the Holy Grail) I had lived in England, but not in the sixteenth century and not in Somerset where Glastonbury Abbey was located. I needed a visit to soak up the details that would create the atmosphere I wanted. Here are some things I learned about researching my setting.

Do your homework.
The public library provided me with more than thirty books about medieval and Elizabethan life in England, the monasteries, and the Dissolution under King Henry VIII. I was surprised at how many books I found specifically about the history and geography of Glastonbury. (Libraries are the best thing about living in a developed country—that and fast internet.) Descriptions stimulated my imagination and filled my mind with elements for my story. Besides all the notes on facts and plot ideas, I soon had a list of places I wanted to see in person.

Keep a journal. 
This is not only what we writers to do, it is also a good way to convince the IRS that your travel was a business expense. I found that I alternated scrawls of information with pages of dialog and description as they came together in my head at the site. It didn’t hurt that my hosts loaned me a bicycle to take the canal path into town through a nature reserve. The bird hide with a view of the Tor (Celtic for ‘hill’) was a perfect place to gather my thoughts and think about what my characters would do with what I had seen that day. One evening I came upon the starlings roosting in the reeds of one of the bogs that still dot the Vale of Avalon. That experience became a key romantic scene in the book. Fog creeping out of the bog across the bike path found its way into a darker scene. The day I climbed the Tor in the rain, I rushed home to the farmhouse where I was staying and drafted the scene when Colin climbs the Tor, visiting the Stations of the Cross in an effort to purge his soul. Of course, it is raining in that scene.

Use a digital camera to take notes. 
After all, a picture is worth a thousand words. The photograph of the monastery wall edging High Street reminds me of its height and the crenulations along the top. I take pictures of signs  to remind me of where the next pictures were taken or to be studied for information later (being careful not to position the flash so it produces a glare that makes the sign unreadable.) One of my numerous shots of the photogenic Tor became the basis for the book’s cover design.

Buy a geological survey map of the area. .
These are sold in shops for hikers. Mine not only kept me from getting lost in my rambles, but I also spread it on the floor of my study back home to plan the approach of King Henry’s men and Colin’s route in search of the stolen Grail.

Local people are great resources
When I visited Glastonbury, I stayed with a family I found by contacting a local church and explaining who I was and what I wanted to do. I offered to pay for hospitality--something that was hard to convince my new friends to accept in the end. They filled my ears with local data and later checked my dialog for authenticity. When I went to Wales to research a sequel (my current work-in-progress) I took advantage of the local Rambler’s Associations. These groups organize country walks. When my fellow walkers found out why I was there, they were eager to suggest other locations I should visit. One hike proved to be shorter than expected and half the group accompanied me to a near-by waterfall they thought I should see. I would never have found the location on my own, but it was the perfect inspiration for several key scenes.

What books have you read whose setting most interested you? Is there a dream setting you would like to visit?

______
LeAnne Hardy has lived in six countries on four continents, sipped cream tea in Oxfordshire, eaten stewed goat at a Mozambican wedding, slid down rocks in a Mato Grosso river and shopped at Mall of America. Her books for young people come out of her cross-cultural experiences and her passion to use story to convey spiritual truths in a form that will impact lives. Visit her at www.leannehardy.net