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<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n. . . and same old author!<\/h2>\n\n\n\nQUESTIONS ABOUT ME (DEB) AND MY NOVEL <\/h2>\n\n\n\n(Adapted from an Author Interview by Michelle Griep)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
(Adapted from an Author Interview by Michelle Griep)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
A licensed pilot, speaker, cattle herder, academic editor . . . So Deb, why writing?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Actually I\u2019ve been writing since I was a child, and all my growing-up dreams centered on becoming a novelist (from the time I penned my first story in elementary school through college communication classes). But I see life in itself as an adventure to be lived, with fiction writing just a result. So when I fell in love, when I birthed babies, when I\u2019ve been presented with opportunities to fly or speak or round up cattle\u2014well, how can I say no? Living heartily and writing at the same time hasn\u2019t always been a possibility for me, as I\u2019m not a great multitasker; there have been years during which I\u2019ve written very little publishable material. So going to grad school at age 44 was a turning point, a way to kick-start serious writing from a firm theological base. I guess you could say I’d been paying my dues and felt I might finally have something of substance to offer the reading public, with the time to do it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What\u2019s your favorite part about the writing game? Least favorite?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I love daydreaming; I love plotting a piece and developing its characters, researching and anticipating its effect, and chatting about it and going to sleep with that story on my mind. My least favorite part of the process is self-promotion, so I’m delighted to have recently joined Mosaic Collection Books<\/a>, an international circle of women writers supporting one another in not only marketing but also creating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In your newly relaunching (debut) novel, The Third Grace<\/em>, the heroine is torn between her rural upbringing and her search for self. How much of you is there in the heroine?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s a great deal of Deb in Aglaia. For starters, like Aglaia, I fell madly in love at a young age and have a tendency to romanticize circumstances. Like her, I\u2019ve lived the tension of rural versus urban life and learned my own place in it geographically as it shaped my attitudes about myself and the world. (For example, when I relocated from city to ranch\u2014in the opposite direction of Aglaia\u2019s move\u2014I adapted by changing my wardrobe like a costume, wearing Levis and checkered shirts for a while, and even tried to like Willy Nelson\u2019s singing!) But, as with Aglaia, my basic self wasn\u2019t ever annihilated and has had to be addressed\u2014especially as it pertains to my relationship with a living God. Aglaia rebels; my rebellion has been slightly more subtle but just as condemning. Aglaia mourns; I\u2019ve had my own brand of sorrow that elicits grief. Aglaia turns to the arts, imagination, and professional avarice for satisfaction of her soulish thirst; I, too, have been tempted to fall into idolatry of creation rather than Creator. Is there really anything new under the sun?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Where did you get the idea for the story?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n When I first visited the Louvre museum in Paris in 1989 and stood transfixed before James Pradier\u2019s marble statue grouping, The Three Graces, I knew I\u2019d found the icon for my novel. The three figures immediately suggested to me a trinity of womanhood, triplets in a way, all made of the same \u201cstuff\u201d yet each looking at something different\u2014each with her own focal point or perspective or philosophy. In Pradier\u2019s rendition of the Graces, one looks downward at the earth, another upward at the sky, the third outward at others. They came to represent to me humanity as a whole and, in effect, the personalities of the three lead characters in my novel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What surprises you most about being a published author?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n My appetite. Have you ever tasted pan-seared foie gras<\/em> on a toasted baguette? One bite of that incredibly rich bit of heaven is just not enough! As deeply satisfying as I find publication of my first novel, I\u2019m surprised at how insufficient it is (and how quickly!) to quell the hankering for the next mouthful\u2014to write my next novel and see it published, too. How can I stop at just a taste?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Got any writing advice for aspiring authors?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Yes\u2014I\u2019d like to pass along the words of an early mentor in college, who said: <\/p>\n\n\n\n “Don’t fret about not writing if you’re too busy living; it will all come out in the end.” <\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s no way of knowing who we or others really are unless we enter into our lives with zest and observation\u2014a necessary preparation for writing, I think.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What question didn\u2019t I ask that you wished I would\u2019ve?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I wish you\u2019d asked, \u201cWhat kind of reader did you have in mind as you wrote this book?\u201d I\u2019d have answered:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Well, first of all, my intended audience for this novel was not<\/em> readers of prairie romance, or those who are squeamish over sensual writing, or those who are confident of their position before God. All the while that I plotted and drafted, Psalm 61:2 sang through my mind: <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cFrom the ends of the earth I call to you, I call as my heart grows faint; lead me to the rock that is higher than I.\u201d <\/strong><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n In other words, I wasn\u2019t writing to those who already know where they stand in Christ, but rather to those who\u2014having left their past behind\u2014are still yearning for a destination beyond their view.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In my novel\u2019s epigraph I quote G.K. Chesterton: <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMan has always lost his way. He has been a tramp ever since Eden; but he always knew, or thought he knew, what he was looking for.\u201d <\/strong><\/span><\/p>(What’s Wrong with the World<\/em>)<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n I wrote The Third Grace<\/em> for all the Aglaias out there\u2014for women who, in pursuit of their own success and self-definition, have left their \u201cMary Grace\u201d behind and are beginning to wonder if their background might after all hold some clue as to what it is they\u2019re really seeking. On the first page, I dedicate my novel thus: \u201cTo all my lost sisters wandering alone out of earshot\u2014His voice still calls.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n BACK COVER BLURB<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The past casts a long shadow, especially when it points to a woman\u2019s first love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As a teen, Mary Grace fell in love with a French exchange student visiting her family\u2019s Nebraska farm. Fran\u00e7ois renamed her \u201cAglaia\u201d\u2014after one of the beautiful Three Graces of Greek mythology\u2014and set her heart longing for something more than her parents\u2019 simplistic life and faith. Now, fifteen years later, Aglaia\u2019s budding success as a costume designer in Denver\u2019s arts scene convinces her that she\u2019s left the na\u00efve country girl far behind\u2014but \u201cMary Grace\u201d has deep roots, as Aglaia learns during a business trip to Paris. Her discovery of sensual notes Fran\u00e7ois jotted into the margins of a Bible during that long-ago fling, a silly errand imposed by her mother, and the scheming of her sophisticated mentor all conspire to create a thirst in her soul that neither evocative daydreams nor professional success can quench.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Third Grace <\/em>takes you on a dual journey across oceans and time–in the footsteps of a woman torn between her rural upbringing and her search for self.<\/p>\n\n\n\n AUTHOR BIO<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I was raised, along with four siblings (in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada) by an entrepreneurial father and an artistic mother, both of whom encouraged creative expression. My first dozen articles and short stories appeared in paying Christian magazines after college, in my early years as a ranch wife\u2014during which time I also learned to cook for huge branding crews, herd cattle, and fly a small plane. In 2001, when our three homeschooling kids were all back in the classroom, I returned to school myself to earn an M.A. in theological studies and then began academic editing of doctoral dissertations and journal articles. For about six years I wrote for a national professional quarterly, and other nonfiction work of mine appeared in various publications (one I\u2019m especially proud of is Christian History<\/em>). <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Third Grace<\/em>,<\/a> first published in 2011, won the prestigious Grace Irwin Grand Prize<\/a>. My nonfiction book published in 2015 is titled Roots and Branches: The Symbol of the Tree in the Imagination of G.K. Chesterton<\/em>. <\/a>But my love has always been fiction, and my next novel, The Red Journal<\/a><\/em>, was published in 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I’m still producing, slowly but surely, with a collection of short stories now in the works and several novel plots up my sleeve. I currently reside with my husband in an empty nest on the banks of a babbling brook in southern Alberta\u2014just a stone\u2019s throw north of the Montana border\u2014and write to my heart\u2019s content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n