The Backslid Blogger

Those of us who were raised Southern Baptist are familiar with the concept of “backsliding,” which is what happens when a previously devout person falls off the proverbial wagon and descends into sinful behavior such as drinking, dancing, or playing cards for money. I fell off the Baptist wagon long ago and backslid into being a lax Unitarian. However, now I must confess my status a a backslid blogger. Just like someone who’s been missing from church for years, I have let my blog slide not because I’ve been drinking (well, okay, a nip every now and then) or dancing (well, maybe a little, mostly to the new Janelle Monae album) or playing cards (I never got the hang of this vice, unless you count Go Fish), but because I’ve been parenting, teaching, writing, and generally living a life.

The good news is that in the interim during which I’ve let my blog lie fallow, I have written a new young adult novel, Quiver, which will be released by Three Rooms Press in October 2018. Set in rural East Tennessee, Quiver is the story of an unlikely friendship between a homeschooled Evangelical Christian teen and an also-homeschooled progressive, vegetarian gender-fluid teen. In our divisive times, Quiver is a call for empathy and understanding across the cultural divide. The book is already generating a lot of praise from such venerable sources as Foreword magazine, which gave it a starred review, and VOYA, which gave it a Perfect Ten Award.

And so, like a backslid Baptist returning to the fold, I ask your forgiveness for my long absence from this blog, and I hope that when you read Quiver, you’ll consider my time away to be time well spent.