Last night I had the opportunity to join in author Erin McCole Cupp’s Sabbath Rest Book Talk. Erin has been producing these short fiction talks built around a specific theme for several months, but this is the first group edition in which she was joined by the lovely Rebecca Willen and me!
Here are the featured books that we discussed:
Today is the feast day of my favorite saint – St. John Paul II. There are so many things to love about this man. His lifestyle and his personalist approach made him relatable. His love for hiking, skiing, poetry, and drama, as well as his experience in Poland during and after World War II, make him a remarkable and fascinating man. His love, as evidenced in all that he did, is a stellar example of what it means to be a Christian, including the sacrificial nature of the universal call to holiness. So, what better day than today for Full Quiver Publishing to release Image and Likeness: Literary Reflections on the Theology of the Body?
The beginning of another school year approached, and I was scared. Even with the slowed-down summer schedule, I was not making any headway with my next book. There was virtually no time in which to really write, and when I did get a moment to steal, nothing I wrote worked, because I hadn’t had any time to let the story form in my head so it could flow onto the page. Where on earth was I going to get the time to have a chance at success?
I went to my writing network’s Facebook page and asked for advice.
“Wake up one hour earlier than your kids do.”
Silly me, already waking up two hours before they did.
“Make family creative time a habitual part of your day! Everyone is working on something.”
When the youngest family member’s idea of “creative” is either decorating her walls with nail polish or asking busy people incessant questions?
“Just do whatever works!”
I didn’t type the words, but I wanted to reply, “BUT NOTHING WORKS!” Continue reading
The Unclaimed Virtual Book Tour stops HERE today!
Born not in a past of corsets and bonnets but into a future of cloning and bioterror, could Jane Eyre survive? This Jane is an “unclaimed embryo,” the living mistake of a reproductive rights center–or so her foster family tells her. At age ten she is sold into slavery as a data mule, and she must fight for freedom and identity in a world mired between bioscientific progress and the religions that fear it.
“Jane Eyre does not need to be updated. It needs to be read and re-read and treasured for its timelessness. But too often, the people of a world obsessed with progress refuse to remember the wisdom of the past. Sometimes, an author must dress the eighteenth century in futuristic salawar kameez to remind the present day that the human story never changes. Whether in Georgian England or the global community of a technocratic future, there will always be orphans who can teach the rest of us how to love, if we will only take the time to learn. This is the reason we need books like Unclaimed.”
– Karen Ullo, author of Jennifer the Damned
Meet Erin McCole Cupp, fellow writer, Catholic mother, Pennsylvanian, and Catholic Writers Guild member. (We also share the same publisher, Full Quiver Publishing.) Working Mother and Don’t You Forget About Me are two highly different works, but both worth your time. Working Mother is her latest, and you can find it on Amazon along with my review as well.
We know so little about the Holy Family from the Bible. We read the infancy of Jesus, mention of his being lost in the temple, and then we jump ahead to his public ministry. Where did you get the idea for Working Mother, which takes place during those hidden years? 
I actually wrote “Working Mother” about seven years ago. Our family took some financial hits, and my freelance writing income was scanty and unreliable. I had to go back to working outside the home. I remember the day I told my kids that I’d be going back to work, and my middle child said, “But Mommy, I thought you were a writer!” I don’t remember how I replied, but I do remember being glad that I was driving at the time and the kids in the back seat couldn’t see me cry. I had to lay aside what I was pretty sure were good, holy desires–staying home with my kids and leading them to the Lord–and I could not see the sense in it. Why wasn’t God helping us enough that I could go back to working from home, doing what I loved for His glory? Every Catholic I knew advised me, “Go to Mary. She understands.” I would snicker and say, “Yeah, well, Mary never had to get a job.” Finally, it was like I heard a voice in my heart ask back, “Are you sure about that?” Over lunch breaks and after bedtimes, “Working Mother” was written. Continue reading