“I should have written that Lent book.” That was my offhand comment to the wonderful Karen Laister of BRF (Bible Reading Fellowship) at the Woman Alive/BRF women’s day in Woking over the summer. Imagine my surprise when a month or so later I received an invitation to write the 2017 BRF Lent book! I had developed a proposal back in 2011 for a devotional exploration of the theme of forgiveness as rooted in Bible for the season of Lent, but for a bunch of reasons, mainly my misunderstanding of the realities of the Christian publishing scene (read stubbornness), the book was never written or published.
After hearing from BRF, I dusted off the proposal I had previously developed and thought, “Wow, there’s some good stuff to delve into here!” The good stuff being the biblical stories of redemption, healing, and freedom through forgiveness – from Jacob and Esau (Genesis 27 and 32) to Abigail begging King David’s forgiveness on her brute of a husband’s behalf (1 Samuel 25) to the prophets and then to the New Testament, such as Jesus, Jesus, Jesus and the early church and the Spirit coming and the hope of the Resurrection and the Life to come and to live in the here and now.
So this time the peeps at BRF and I came to an agreement, which I signed today. <Woo hoo!> Thank you, Lord! And yes, I’m excited! Although we do need a good title – my provisional one was “Father, Forgive Them.” Open to suggestions!
Living the dream! With Authentic Media’s fantastic sales wonder, Lawrie Stenhouse.
Last night was my first bookshop event for Finding Myself in Britain – sometimes I have to pinch myself that yes indeed, I have written a book-baby and yes, I get to go to some lovely places to speak to some lovely people about it!
The rain poured down as I chugged along in the train to Wokingham, the setting of the evening. My publisher’s super-salesguy Lawrie Stenhouse was there to greet me at the station, complete with brolley and Diet Coke. We arrived at the picturesque venue, the Holme Grange Craft Village, a setting of cute shops and a converted milking barn which is the café, where the event took place. There’s a Christian bookshop in the craft village called Quench, whose manager, Ali Ceaser, had the vision and passion to host the evening. She got the Quench owners, Tony and Claire Bronnimann, on board and worked with my publisher, Authentic Media, and the staff at the café to make it all run so smoothly.
I especially loved the quizzes Ali had for people to complete as they arrived on different meanings of words according to which side of the Atlantic one is on. Each of the guests, as part of the evening’s price of admission (only £5), received a sumptuous piece of cake and a cup of tea or coffee.
Ali Ceaser, who manages Quench in Wokingham, and does mighty fine job of it too.
Bookshops have been decimated up and down the country over the past five years – we’ve probably lost 150 Christian bookshops with the demise of the Wesley Owen and SPCK chains, along with many independents. Thus I find the vision and passion of these committed people who host events such as mine last night so encouraging. The Quench chain seems to be bucking the trend of decline, from what I gather – keeping a firm grip on stock (not buying too much or the wrong products for their area), employing passionate and hardworking people, and having the faith to host an evening like last night’s.
After all, any event is a gamble – will people come out? A week ago we thought we’d be cancelling it, for not enough people had bought tickets. But the evening ended up being sold out, and people came even in the rain. Do support your local bookshop if you have one.
And following, some photos from the evening.
The quaint setting for the evening. I should have done some shopping!Lawrie always has a smile – love that about him!Hmm… what to choose from? I went for red velvet, and was not sorry.Yep, I supplied the Stars and Stripes scarf!Lots of preparation to get the old milking barn ready.I love singing books for people! Such a privilege and a joy.Ali, interviewing me – asking me to share a most embarrassing moment!My non-selfie from the front.Lawrie is a fan of halfies.And to cap off the evening, I treated myself to a fairly traded Christmas ornament to remember my first bookshop event by.
Thank you Ali, Lawrie, and the team! It was an evening to remember.
How we find our lives when we lose them… the subject of the sermon I gave at our church at the book launch on Sunday, 27 September. Have a listen; I’d love to hear what you think.
Time for a new devotional series! I’ve loved reading Dallas Willard’s books, and also one that came out shortly after he died, Eternal Living: Reflections on Dallas Willard’s Teaching on Faith and Formation. Dallas stressed the importance of memorizing Scripture and of rereading the gospels, pondering them and chewing them over so that we would become more like our Master, Jesus. Here’s a series on Luke 4:1-13, to help us in that quest.
1Then Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan River. He was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, 2where he was tempted by the devil for forty days. Jesus ate nothing all that time and became very hungry.
3Then the devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become a loaf of bread.”
4But Jesus told him, “No! The Scriptures say, ‘People do not live by bread alone.’”
5Then the devil took him up and revealed to him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. 6“I will give you the glory of these kingdoms and authority over them,” the devil said, “because they are mine to give to anyone I please. 7I will give it all to you if you will worship me.”
8Jesus replied, “The Scriptures say, ‘You must worship the Lord your God and serve only him.’”
9Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, to the highest point of the Temple, and said, “If you are the Son of God, jump off! 10For the Scriptures say, ‘He will order his angels to protect and guard you. 11And they will hold you up with their hands so you won’t even hurt your foot on a stone.’”
12Jesus responded, “The Scriptures also say, ‘You must not test the Lord your God.’”
13When the devil had finished tempting Jesus, he left him until the next opportunity came.
“Brooklyn Museum – Jesus Ministered to by Angels (Jésus assisté par les anges) – James Tissot – Online Collection of Brooklyn Museum
[Jesus] was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where he was tempted by the devil… Luke 4:1-2
Ever heard the adage, “I can resist anything but temptation”? We might smile wryly but then nod, thinking of the secret indiscretions we allow ourselves – the extra chocolate truffle, the bitterness we cling to, the envious glance at our neighbor. Or if we give in to temptation, we might eschew responsibility: “The devil made me do it!”
But Jesus shows us a better way. In the passage we are looking at during this series, we see him resist Satan; instead he follows God’s commands for right living. Jesus was fully man and could have fallen prey to Satan’s whispers. But he doesn’t. Filled with the Holy Spirit and recounting the word of God, he speaks truth to Satan’s lies, showing them to be flimsy and empty.
And look at the highlighted words in this week’s text – God actually leads Jesus into this temptation. God not only allowed the devil to tempt Jesus, but seems to have set up the meeting. For Jesus in avoiding sin becomes the new Adam, the One through whom we may enjoy life abundant. The first Adam, when he and Eve gave into Satan’s temptations and ate the forbidden fruit, brought about death. But Jesus through his sacrifice on the cross brings life. As we become alive in Christ (see 1 Corinthians 15:22), we receive the power and self-control even to resist Satan. Now that’s good news for today!
Prayer: Father God, please endow me with the fruits of your Spirit. Help me to praise you with my lips and in my life. Amen.
The sticker is actually a bit creepy considering that the clown’s eyes are crossed out.
A simple sticker, but when I saw it, the memories came rushing back. I had unearthed from the loft (US: attic) a bunch of mailing envelopes to send out my book in, which CutiePyeGirl found intriguing. In the midst of them she found this little sticker and presented it to me with a flourish. When I saw it, there in my mind’s eye was PyelotBoy, three and four years old, walking out of the Royal Free Hospital, having survived another eye appointment. Our consultant was amazing, but the drops hurt him, and my heart always tugged at those meetings about his eyes.
PyelotBoy has faced some physical challenges, including his eyesight. One of my dear friends – who herself had a squint (US: lazy eye) and two surgeries in her childhood to correct it – reluctantly approached me when PyelotBoy was about two years old, asking when we were going to get his squint looked at. She didn’t want to interfere, but she knew more than we did that it needed attending to. I had noticed it, of course, but just thought it was an eye that sometimes turned in, an affliction that appears in both my maternal and paternal families. I’m so grateful for her gentle question, however, as we got an appointment right away and found out that his squint very much needed attending to. The weak eye, if not strengthened, would lose its ability to see. (Spiritual application alert!) He would also eventually need surgery to move the muscles around in both eyes to straighten them out and have them working right.
So much for us as new parents to take in during those appointments. Our fantastic consultant we got originally through what was then called St Luke’s Hospital for the Clergy, an organization that provides healthcare for clergy and their families to which medical people (often Christians) donate their services. We didn’t need to be pushy advocates for PyelotBoy because Miss Davey went out of her way to give him the best treatment available. (And I learned throughout the years why she’s called “Miss” Davey – for me as an American I thought it odd, and would rather call her Dr Davey. But the Miss signifies that she’s a surgeon, so is actually a higher designation than Dr. Interesting!)
The things one finds squirreled away in the loft!
We had years of appointments and years of those stickers. Years of PyelotBoy reading first the charts of pictures of familiar objects (and yes, a teapot featured) and then letters when he had learned them. Years of PyelotBoy wearing a patch over his strong eye for hours in order to strengthen the weak eye. The enduring for him and us of his eye surgery, which Miss Davey performed so well – she even gave me a hug in the operating theatre after the anaethitist put him to sleep, for I promptly burst into tears at the sight.
So when I saw that sticker, so many memories came flooding back and I felt tender and grateful. Sad that PyelotBoy had to endure those trials, but proud of him for the way he met them, one by one, with courage. Like his eye, which was strengthened over the years, he’s stronger and more resilient in character.
The winner! Illustrated and designed by Vivian Hansen.
“Don’t judge a book by its cover.”
“A picture tells a thousand words.”
In the case of my first book, I’m happy if you judge it by its cover, because it’s just so darn good. When I first received the design, I loved pulling it up on my phone and watching the person’s face as they saw at it for the first time. Again and again, they would flash a smile and often they’d exclaim in delight. Here’s part one in how the cover came to be.
When I was a commissioning/acquisitions editor at two big corporate publishing houses, we had whole teams of designers working on the covers, designing them and/or hiring out artists or photographers to provide the original artwork and photographs. How many cover designs we’d receive per project would vary – sometimes we’d have three or four variations on a particular cover, but one Stateside designer was known for his huge creativity, giving us ten to fifteen completely different designs.
Times have changed, although I suspect the massive publishers continue in this fashion. But Authentic Media, the publisher of Finding Myself in Britain, didn’t have its own design department in-house, so was able to explore other options. The MD, Steve Mitchell, is innovative and creative, and follows the publishing trends and has a sense of what’s new and what’s possible in this strange new world. I’m so glad I followed his lead throughout the process.
The cover needs to be available about six months before publication, so the design process needs to start at least nine months before. I had previously shown Steve an amazing painting of our church that Steve Bjorkman had carefully crafted in a mind-blowingly rapid manner when he and his wife were visiting the UK one year, and Authentic-Steve wondered if a cover might emerge from it. Here’s one of the covers Authentic-Steve had designed with the painting by Artist-Steve, which although we thought was fun, we knew wasn’t exactly right.
Artwork by Steve Bjorkman. One of his paintings does appear in my book, which delights me.
So Authentic-Steve committed instead to have the design created through 99 Designs. I had heard him speak of the good experience he’d had in the design of other books, such as Chris Juby’s @BibleIntro, so knew a little of how the website works. The publisher signs up for a package – bronze, silver, gold, or platinum. The higher the package, the more expensive (but still reasonable), and the more designs you have to choose from. After the contest starts, any interested designer who is signed up with 99 Designs can submit a design within the 7-day window. When the contest is closed, the publisher/author chooses a design and can ask for tweaks. The winning designer then receives the fee.
I see a lot of benefits of this system, but admittedly they favor the publisher. One is having access to designers from all of the world. Another is the huge number and variety of designs that are submitted with only having to pay for a flat fee. But from the designers’ point of view, it’s a lot of work that you might not get paid for – I did feel bad for the stellar designs created that we didn’t use. Yet it gives designers the access to potential work that they’d otherwise not be considered for. For instance, we’d have never found the winning designer without this website.
My publisher put together the cover brief (you can see it here), which was a short summary of the book (a couple of paragraphs and an outline of the contents) and then for the design elements, he said:
We aren’t looking anything too twee or formulaic e.g. flags.
I wanted to put down more suggestions about what ways to take the cover visually, but Steve rightly pushed back, saying, “You’ve got to trust the process.” This is where authors need good and wise publishers – we think we know what’s best for our book-baby, but we don’t. I’m so glad we weren’t directive, and trusted the designers to do what they’re good at – designing. (And yes, the winning design does employ flags!)
We received 96 designs from 42 designers for the contest. Some of the covers made me cringe – one in particular made me think of 50 Shades of Britain – but many were excellent and a couple were outstanding. Of course, anything to do with art and creation is subjective, so what I thought was fabulous wasn’t always the same as what others thought. But we all agreed on the winning design.
I don’t think I should cut and paste over some of the designs that didn’t get selected because of copyright issues, but you can see examples here and here. Most of the designs have been taken down, but you get a feel for the diversity of options we had. I liked the feel of #92 and #90, but they are more typical of what one would expect for my book; the winner simply outshone them. Several of the people at my publisher liked the cover by LilaM, but I thought it looked twee (US: cringey), and like a woman during the thirties or forties.
In part two on behind the scenes of the cover design, I’ll interview the winner of the contest, Vivian Hansen.
It’s 1 October, or October 1, depending on your vantage point, and thus the official launch date of Finding Myself in Britain. It feels a bit odd, however, as for me it’s just a normal day – I’ve taken CutiePyeGirl to school, am now writing in my study, and later will go into town for my second class for the master’s in Christian spirituality at Heythrop College. A normal day. We launched the book at church on Sunday – which was amazing – and I have three speaking gigs next week – which is also amazing. But this week isn’t so action packed, and today is just another normal day.
Photo: Alan Light, flickr
I keep repeating that refrain because normal is good. Normal is normal. Normal is rooted and grounded and has lots of room for humility. Normal is tidying up the house and working in the garden and doing the school run and washing the dishes and sitting in the sunshine while writing.
As I think about normal, I’m grateful for my years of working with important people. When I was in my twenties I worked for the Trinity Forum, an outreach to business executives. Think the movers and shakers of top companies – Really Important People. Yet as I got to know them and their spouses, I realized that they were just people too. Okay, so they were unique and motivated and smart and amazing, but at the end of the day they had to take their trousers off one leg at a time just like the rest of us.
And then as a commissioning/acquisitions editor with HarperCollins UK and Zondervan I also got to meet some Really Important People. Movers and shakers within the Christian world – those with their fingers on the pulse, writing books like the Archbishop’s Lent book or the one-off Word on the Street (Rob Lacey). And as I dreamed with them about their next project and coached them editorially, I saw that they too were just people. Creative, visionary, motivated, and fantastic. But people.
And so I’m glad that today, when my book-baby launches officially, that it’s just another day in the vicarage. I don’t ever want to forget that I’m just another person; just another writer. And that’s not to downgrade who I am – I know I’m made in the image of God and therefore am amazing. But I want to be rooted and grounded and never too haughty to be the one to take out the trash or clean up after a sick child.
Bye, bye, book-baby! Hope you’re adopted into some wonderful families!
“I had no idea apple pie was considered ‘quintessentially’ American until I lived there and heard this phrase! I was thought it was very English!” So said Jennie Pollock, my editor of Finding Myself in Britain, who gave me the pictured fabulous tea towel as a “baby shower” gift for my book-baby at the book launch. Americans claim apple pie as one of their core symbols, along with Mom and Uncle Sam and blue jeans. I suppose this grew out of the nation being formed by immigrants – apple seeds were brought over to the colonies by the English settlers in the 1600s. But Jennie is right – actually the first recipe for apple pie, according to this interesting post, was published in an English cookbook in 1381 and called for raisins, pears, and figs in addition to apples.
Americans are happy to be associated with symbols such as the American flag, the freedom-loving eagle, and apple pie. But what about the people on this small island? That becomes much more complicated – as British as…? What comes to mind? I can think of traits for individual countries: As Scottish as kilts and thistles and William Wallace. As Welsh as daffodils and amazing singers and St David. As Irish as a craic and shamrocks and potatoes. As English as – what? From a tourist approach people would say Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament and a stiff upper lip.
What do you say? What are Americans like? Britons? If you’re Scottish/Welsh/Irish/English, do you agree or disagree with those I listed for your country? And if you hail from another country, what are your country’s symbols?
Celebration is such an important spiritual discipline, but we often overlook it. Perhaps we feel indulgent if we are celebrating an accomplishment – such as the publication of my book. But I’m all for celebration, and I know that Finding Myself in Britain was written only with the help of so many people – those at the publisher (MD, editors, typesetters, proofreaders, designers, marketers and sales people) as well as friends and family (reviewers, readers, encouragers, putter-up-ers-when-she’s-cranky!). So it was right and good and wonderful to launch my book-baby into the world on Sunday at our church.
Our church – the setting for the book launch.
Later I may post the link to my sermon – or maybe not if I feel shy! (I don’t have the copy yet.) It was a privilege to preach on Matthew 10, the calling of the apostles to share the good news of Jesus. He outlines to them some of the challenges they will face, and he calls for their complete devotion. One of the key verses I was speaking on was Matthew 10:39: “Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.” For as I’ve “lost” my life by moving to Britain, I’ve actually found it.
The all-important set-up. Showing off the Stars and Stripes to my friend Esther Clift, with a flourish.Me with Marketing Queen, Kate Beaton. I think she was instructing me on the best way to read a book.It’s not all drudgery! With Becky Fawcett, who managed the editorial process and among other things kept my i’s dotted and t’s crossed. She was a huge help with the recipes, helping me translate them into British measurements and even testing many of them out.The sermon. My text wasn’t Jonah, but he got a mention, as I never wanted to live outside of the States. Ha!Nicholas interviewing me after the sermon. He normally only wears “proper” shoes, but was wearing tennis shoes (UK: trainers) only because his ankle is still healing up after the summer’s fracture.It was a lovely full house! (The couches are the creche area to make families with small children welcome.)
After the service I got to sign books – what a joy and a privilege that was! Seeing my book-baby going into the hands of so many whom I love was a humbling honor and delight. We were especially delighted to welcome our closest friends in the UK – from Staffordshire and Gloucestshire and Southampton and outside London.
Signing books, which was such fun. PyelotBoy and CutiePyeGirl were my helpers.
We had a fantastic buffet lunch with lots of lovely chicken (made by the wonderful Alie Teale), salads (my friends indulged me and made some of the recipes from the book) and desserts – also with an American theme (and thus they were not that day called “puddings”). Oreo cheesecake and Oreo truffles and brownies and blonde brownies and red velvet cake and rice krispy treats and even (one of my favorites) a Costco cake.
What a fantastic spread.Desserts! I don’t think anyone left hungry.A particularly tasty salad, in my book.
The flowers representing my fantabulous friends forever (sent to me by my dear high-school friends)With my editor Jennie Pollock, who pushed me after I’d already rewritten the thing 3 times. I’m so glad she did!I have to include this photo from the Christian Resources Together retreat, in which I made Authentic Meda’s MD, Steve Mitchell, pose with me (for he wasn’t able to be at the launch). Finding Myself in Britain never would have been born without his vision, commitment, and encouragement. I’m so grateful.
Book-baby, go well. I give thanks you’re out there in the world.
The day I came home from the school run to find my book had been delivered was a sunny, joyful day. All that hard work of writing and rewriting, and here it was in its beautiful matte finish and gorgeous heavy paper stock. Wow and wow!
“I should have written that Lent book.” That was my offhand comment to the wonderful Karen Laister of BRF (Bible Reading Fellowship) at the Woman Alive/BRF women’s day in Woking over the summer. Imagine my surprise when a month or so later I received an invitation to write the 2017 BRF Lent book! I had developed a proposal back in 2011 for a devotional exploration of the theme of forgiveness as rooted in Bible for the season of Lent, but for a bunch of reasons, mainly my misunderstanding of the realities of the Christian publishing scene (read stubbornness), the book was never written or published.
movers and shakers of top companies – Really Important People. Yet as I got to know them and their spouses, I realized that they were just people too. Okay, so they were unique and motivated and smart and amazing, but at the end of the day they had to take their trousers off one leg at a time just like the rest of us.
