Why I Started Writing:

I’ve felt compelled to write from my early teen years. My parents bought me an old Underwood typewriter, which I still possess some sixty years later. I recall writing short inspirational articles with the typewriter on a picnic table under a shade tree on our Iowa farm. I’ve been writing ever since. 

I find writing to be an awe-inspiring process in which you take your thoughts, turn them into words on paper or digital data and have someone pick up the words through reading at a later time, sometimes much later, at a different location, sometimes far, far away, reflecting on what was on the author’s mind. Words are a timeless means of communication without geographical barriers, a breaking free of the space-time continuum. To think that I can sit before my keyboard alone in a room, communicating with untold numbers of people in different places at different times! This is why I started writing and continue to write. 

Authors Who Have Influenced Me:

Because I write both fiction and nonfiction, I find that a diverse group of writers have inspired me and influenced my writing. Mark Twain took me on adventures as a young reader with Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. I think it was then I began to realize telling a story well, even a made-up story, could pull a reader into an imagined adventure. I’ve enjoyed Louis L'Amour's western novels in which he makes you feel you’ve gone back in time to the old west. James Herriot made his ordinary days as a veterinarian come alive, inspiring me to find the extraordinary in the ordinary. Of course, I need to include C.S. Lewis, both his fiction and nonfiction proving to me the power of the written word to influence people for the good. John Newton, who is famous for the hymn “Amazing Grace,” showed his skill for writing in the large collection of his letters (how someone could write so well with quill and ink, without benefit of spell check and copy and paste is beyond me). I’ve been inspired by the writings of Calvin Miller and Eugene Peterson, both amazing word crafters. There are others, but this is a sampling of those who have inspired me to aim to write well for the glory of God and the good of the reader. 

Books I Have Written:

Object Lessons for a Year is a collection of children’s sermons first published in 1986 by Baker Book House. It’s still in print and by far my best selling book at over 80,000 copies. Silent Words Loudly Spoken, published by CSS Publishers, is a collection of short sayings for outdoor church signs. Kathryn’s Fountain, published by Cladach Press, is a novel about a woman in an extended care facility who finds new meaning in life, that she’s a piece of the puzzle that completes the picture of God’s grand scheme of things. I’ve also had several books published withAmazon KDP and Lulu Press including Moon’s Mercy, a science fiction novel, Racing the Storm, a contemporary novel set in a central Florida mobile home park, and several nonfiction works including 31 Days Toward Spiritual Maturity in Christ, The Comparison Game, and Reasons Enough to Believe. 

What I'm Working On Now:

I’m excited to have signed a contract with Elk Lake Publishers for my book Growing Older Gracefully: 31 Reflections on Finishing Well. We’re in the process of editing the manuscript and preparing it for publication. I’m also working on a small book titled The Divine Profile: 31 Reflections on the Attributes of God. On the fiction front, I’ve started to put some thoughts together on a juvenile novel or novella in the science fiction/fantasy genre tentatively titled The Lamb and the Lion.