Tara Capps

Why I Started Writing:

I say more on paper than I ever could in conversation. More than one therapist told me my life was like a Hallmark movie and that I should write a book called How to Survive Life. I took it to heart.

On my forty-second birthday, I was in the kitchen baking when I noticed how different the day felt. No texts from friends. No expensive outfit. I started journaling to find out why I felt a gap. The gap was my faith. My old life, friends, and values were behind me, and I was in limbo between missing who I had been and becoming who I was meant to be.

Authors Who Have Influenced Me:

Lysa TerKeurst’s Uninvited gave words to the loneliness of feeling left out, even in rooms where I thought I belonged. Shauna Niequist’s Present Over Perfect challenged the perfectionism I had built my life around. Jinger Duggar Vuolo’s People Pleaser named the need to be liked that had shaped so much of my life, and showed me how to begin breaking free from it.

Books I Have Written:

The Sea Has Never Belonged to Us (Elk Lake Publishing, Inc. (forthcoming)

I was raised in a deeply Christian home, but I left the pews feeling guilty and afraid of God. It wasn’t until my life was spinning out of control that I recommitted to Christ and found the true meaning of Scripture. I started asking God to expose my idols, and he exposed them all. Sports. Image. My place in the Scottsdale bubble. In every season of my life, I had placed my identity in something other than him. When those identities crumbled, I was left hopeless. The Sea Has Never Belonged to Us is a faith memoir for anyone who is still in the storm.

What I'm Working On Now:

Not Broken, Misread

For two decades, I was treated for the wrong condition. I am autistic. I performed and shaped myself into whatever each room required until I became someone I no longer recognized. Not Broken, Misread is the story of how I finally found myself through my three autistic children. It is for every woman who has spent her life being misread.