This is just a short post to let any interested readers know I will be doing a book signing at Weaver’s Store in Denver (Fivepointville), Pennsylvania, this Friday, August 4, from 3:00-5:00 P.M. If you are in the area, I would love to connect with you there!
For book signings in Virginia coming up, check my events schedule page.
Congratulations! Self publishing a book and peddling it is no small feat! i hope it does well for you!
Thank you. But Anything But Simple is not self published. Are you familiar with Herald Press?
Hey my home turf !! Make sure you stop at Shady Maple for something to eat -or at least to see the place because everybody and their brother will be asking if you have been there !
Alright. Thanks for the tip!
A friend loaned me a copy of your book and once I got started I could scarcely lay it down. You don’t know me and I don’t know you, but we know a lot of the same people – from your father’s parents and sisters, to some of your church family, to my sister, Grace, who was a member at Wayside for many years but now goes to Shiloh. But – I’m not commenting here to talk about acquaintances, I want to talk about your book – or more pointedly, about you. Your words – sentences pregnant with passion and pathos, touched me. Many times I blinked back tears because I related exactly to the feelings you experienced in your life. Often when I meet other writers I’m impressed with what I have come to believe is actually true, that God creates writers differently from everybody else. In some ways that’s funny and in other ways it’s what causes us so much loneliness and compels us to get our words out into the light of publication for affirmation of our humanity. I haven’t completely finished reading your book so I’m probably connecting with you prematurely, but I still just want you to know that I’ve read most of it, enjoyed every single page, am doing a lot of reading between the lines and loving what I’m hearing.
Bless you, my dear, conflicted, transparent, Mennonite friend.
Sincerely,
From your new conflicted, transparent, Mennonite friend
It is good to hear from you, my conflicted, transparent Mennonite friend. I love to hear that others connect with my story. I’m a little bit surprised every time to find that others experience the same emotions and struggles I do. A good surprise. I will have to think about what you said in writers being “different.” Maybe different in the sense that all artistic people are different, with an awareness of the delicate nuances of life and the ability to hold two conflicting worldviews simultaneously in their head. :) At least me, and I have heard that it is that sort of people which understand and can produce art.
I’ve passed your book on to one of my daughters for her to read, else I would find where you had mentioned having felt lonely and (I thought you said “different,” but you may have used another word and I interpreted it as “different”.) very sensitive. I think you called it seeing the world in 4D. That is such a perfect description! The first time I attended a writer’s workshop I sat at a table full of writers during the lunch break, all of them complete strangers to me, and, I suppose, sat staring in amazement at the way they visited! Borrowing from your words, they spoke in 4D! It was the funniest, most interesting, and riveting conversation that I’ve ever heard, and I didn’t even know them. Our only connection was writing! I came away from that experience understanding the gift that God had entrusted me with a little better. Instead of feeling personally flawed, I felt God-kissed and affirmed.
No, you remembered right. I did say in the book I felt different. And I did, for a very long part of my life. I still do in many ways, but I’ve also begun to find and celebrate the similarities I have with other people. You, for instance. We don’t even know each other, but in many ways we can relate. Since I’ve started writing, there are many people who have said I put into words the same things they feel–and some are people I would never have guessed would have those same feelings. So I’ve begun to rethink my “different” position. Different? Maybe. Or maybe only always the same.
I love these last words of yours: God-kissed and affirmed. Beautiful. I want to embrace that affirmation for myself.
Thank you.
I just got my copy of your book this evening. It’s now 12:30 am and I’m about halfway through it. I don’t want to put it down:) I’m curious if you live near Hayward? (because my best friend lives there…)