Fiction from the Ragged Edge of Faith
“The burden of grief is heavy, like the snow that crushed that old barn out in the field, but spring will come and the snow will melt.” In my novel Snow Country, Louisa comforts her granddaughter, who is grieving her
Read more
“Hyvää päivää.” “Where you live?” “Out Mohawk way.” “Yous get lots of snow dere, hey.” “Yeah, we woke to two feet today. I scooped myself out then drove Hough’on, but dey hardly got none.” I didn’t think I had an
Read more
Many American Finns, descendants of 19th and early-20th century immigrants, retained several Finnish words in their family cultures. I remember my grandma calling me something like “bego boyga.” She would never translate for me, so I could only surmise it
Read more
“So I was sitting on the couch looking out the window at a woman getting out of a burgundy truck. I was thinking, What? Is she here to read the meter? Then I see her walking back to her truck
Read more
She pulled into the driveway and her headlights lit up the Johnson’s sauna. Smoke curled out of its chimney and a bright window lit the white bark of a birch tree next to it. She got out of her car.
Read more
“This is why I could never write this.” My husband, Todd, read a line from my romance novel he was editing. He thought it was a bit over the top, too sentimental, cheesy. I laughed out loud. “I got that
Read more
“Beth drove Grandma over the old, double-decker Lift Bridge as snowmobile traffic passed underneath on what was once a railroad track carrying ore off Copper Island.” ~ Snow Country The old Finns called it Kuparisaari, Copper Island. It was an
Read more
“Did you think I was as old as you?!” He looked at me incredulously. Ouch. I was at a coffee shop with a writing group. A fellow writer also grew up in the area. “What school did you go to?”
Read more
Order Now on Amazon! Jilted three weeks before her wedding, Beth Dawson escapes sunny California for the snowy Upper Peninsula of Michigan, where a young State Trooper challenges her to let go of her rules for Christian courtship. Her domineering
Read more
Published in 2014, this touching memoir remains fresh and relate-able to anyone who’s suffered loss. It chronicles the first year after a terminal diagnosis in all its raw emotion without having everything figured out, although it ends with a positive message
Read more