I believe in grace: the grace that transforms the enslaved to heirs; the grace of beauty in art, music, movement, and life; and the grace of a true and timely word.
My family and I live in the American West, but the road leading up to our door has taken me on trails in the Appalachian Mountains, down the teeming streets of Seoul, and through old wood-paneled libraries in Charlottesville, Virginia. In every place there have been hints of beauty and great knocks of mercy that have called to me from beyond my surroundings, always speaking of a King and Friend and Father whose presence is truly Home. Much of what I write is spurred by these things, including a book about living Homeward (releasing October 2023).
I hold an MA in English literature (medieval and Renaissance), and I’ve been an academic manuscript editor and a short story writer for a monthly devotional in the past. Today I have the joy of being a member artist of the Anselm Society Arts Guild and a contributing writer at Cultivating Magazine and the Rabbit Room.
I have a special affection for afternoon tea, and tea at any other time of day; travelogues; bookstores and old books (though, sadly, not their smell!); the works of C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, L. M. Montgomery, Eugene Peterson, Corrie ten Boom, Malcolm Guite, Patricia MacLachlan, Elisabeth Elliot, Wendell Berry, Anne Porter, and Tim Keller; Seamus Heaney’s Beowulf and Anglo-Saxon poetry; sijo poems; the Blue Ridge Mountains; Shakespeare’s later plays; cottage gardens; em dashes (alas — more habit than affinity); Anne Shirley; Rilla Blythe; half-wooded hills; the March family; fruit pies; salted dark chocolate; and reading children’s literature aloud “with voices.”
It’s lovely to meet you.
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Photo credit: Teressa Mahoney