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| "Then romance entered the world, and all of our troubles began..." |
“Take up and read!” –Heard by St. Augustine while deep in agonized
prayer, as revealed in his spiritual autobiography, The Confessions
“I heard you making patterns rhyme
Like some new romantic
looking for the TV sound
You’ll see I’m right some
other time.”
--Duran Duran, “Planet Earth”
I don't wish to dwell too much on my identity, because I'm a big
believer that the tale is far more interesting than the teller, and that the
latter really needs to get out of the way, putting herself aside so that the former
can truly spring to life. For our purposes, however, let me reveal just a few
things about myself: I am a devoutly religious wife and mother living in
Winnipeg, Canada. I have worked for years in the field of education, and have
long held aspirations of becoming a published author.
Until now, most of my writing has been
done in furtive journal entries and occasional "letters to the
editor," which I have undertaken whenever I am able to catch a breather
from the hectic events of my day-to-day life. In the last year or so, however,
I have found a surge of inspiration, which I can only attribute to the Author
of all inspiration. May He always bless my writing, and may my writing always
strive to glorify Him.
I am interested in writing about the
intersection of love and faith. Like many women, I am drawn to the romance
genre. However, I am largely dissatisfied with the general trends one finds in
this field today. If mainstream romance is glutted with novels that are lurid
and trashy (and to my mind, hardly "sexy" at all), the species of
"Christian" romance goes to the opposite extreme, being largely bland
and bloodless in its depiction of the interactions of men and women. Moreover, as
many people wiser and more learned than me have observed, a conspicuous “dumbing
down” process has occurred among the general populace, leading to a
diminishment in the literary quality of novels generally. Lovers of romantic literature
used to have magnificent works like Wuthering
Heights and Jane Eyre to read, but
now Fifty Shades of Grey, and others
of its ilk, are the new, unfortunate norm.
My aim in writing is to restore blood to the bland, faith to the
tawdry, and depth to the shallow. If you are looking for romantic works
depicting the intense viscerality of carnal desire, the unbearable anguish of
spiritual suffering, the unspeakable joy of gracious redemption, and the exquisite
literacy of our magnificent English language, then I invite you to “take up and
read” my work!
