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Laurel has a house full of boys--three to be exact, however, if you add her husband, the cat and the dog, masculinity runs rampant. Laurel lives in Florida and recently celebrated 13 years of marriage. She graduated from college with a communication degree. She has been an in-home childcare provider, and a pre-school teacher. She is currently a part time office assistant, which allows her to spend time with the boys when they are out of school. Reading is Laurel’s easiest, and sometimes only, method for getting away from it all. Laurel is also a devotional writer for the Laced With Grace website, and during her spare time you can find her on her blog at Laurel Wreath. If you have any suggestions for a positive, uplifting book that will bring women closer to the heart of God, drop Laurel a note at at lrlwreath @ gmail.com (remove spaces). Visit Laurel's Website: Laurel Wreath's Reflections
_____________________________ Laurel Interviews
What a fun book! What a fun author! It was my pleasure to visit with Robin Jones Gunn this month. Talking with Robin makes you feel like you are sitting in a coffee shop sharing a latte with a friend. Many of you may be familiar with her Sisterchick book series. Robin’s first novel was published in 1988, and she has never looked back. She has authored over 63 books, including 47 novels. Sales of her popular Christy Miller series, Glenbrooke series and Sisterchicks series are approaching four million copies sold, with translations in nine languages. Robin has been the recipient of the Christy Award, the Mt. Hermon Pacesetter Award, the Sherwood E. Wirt Award and was a Gold Medallion Finalist. She also serves on the Board of Directors for Media Associates International and the Board of Directors for Jerry Jenkins’ Christian Writers’ Guild. In her latest book Sisterchicks Go Brit!, you travel with Kellie and Liz as they tour England. The sightseeing includes C.S. Lewis’ stomping grounds, sailing over the Cotswolds in a hot air balloon, and having tea at high noon at the Ritz. These are impressive, but it is the side trips that will have you laughing until your sides hurt. Robin Jones Gunn’s writing style makes you feel like you are right there. Through it all she weaves the wonder and surprise God gives us in the everyday things. What a perfect summer read! Grab a cup of your choice and allow me to introduce you to Robin Jones Gunn. We are so excited to have you here at "Christian Women Online." Can you tell us a little bit about yourself? I started typing out my “credentials” and then I thought, “Wait. The only thing that really matters is that I’m a God-lover.” So I’ll start there. I’m a God-lover. And I happen to be a storyteller. I began writing over twenty years ago and (here come the credentials) I’ve had 70 books published with almost 4 million in sales worldwide. Amazing. My husband is also a God-lover. We’ve been married for 31 years. I still love him and he still loves me. It’s so nice when it works out that way. Our grown son and daughter are both God-lovers. The four of us really like each other and still take vacations together whenever we can. Our lives have been absolutely wonderful and absolutely horrible – sometimes within the same week. We’ve lived lots of places including California and Hawaii but currently we live near Portland, Oregon with our over-fed golden retriever and a variety of transient twenty-somethings who need a place to crash for a month or a year. Traveling and speaking around the world has been my dearest happiness over the past decade or so. I’m a fanatic researcher of Hawaiian history. I don’t cook well at all and therefore I don’t cook much. We love our church: www.imagodeicommunity.com and I have a gardenia bush blooming in my little nest right now that is filling the air with the sweetest scent of summer ever! I love gardenia bushes, they are so fragrant! Sisterchicks Go Brit! is #7 in the Sisterchick series. How did the Sisterchick series come about?
And so I did. The first novel, “Sisterchicks on the Loose!” is loosely based on a wild and wonderful trip Donna and I took to Finland 16 years ago. Only a true friend can say something about your underarm flab. What is the definition and characteristics of a Sisterchick? A Sisterchick is a true friend through all of life’s ups and downs. The definition we came up with at the publishing house was, “A friend who loves you like a sister, shares the deepest wonders of your heart and provides a reality check when you’re being a brat.” I love that definition, especially the brat part. You actually traveled to England for the research of this book and made me feel like I was right there with you. How closely tied is the story to your real life travels? I love England. I’ve been there a number of times but I have to tell you the most amazing gift I’ve been given while I’ve been writing the Sisterchicks novels. My publisher gave me a travel budget and I have had the privilege of traveling to all the places I’ve written about: Paris, Venice, Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii, Mexico and now England. Is that a writers’ dream or what? For the trip to England I asked my editor, Julee, to go with me. Some of the adventures that happened to the characters in the novel actually did happen to Julee and me. Like the part about meeting a young French woman on the train to Windsor Castle and then spending the day with her. And the tour of Oxford and going to see where C.S. Lewis lived and where Tolkien lived. Of course, we did have to go to high tea at the Ritz in order to make sure that part of the story was researched thoroughly, scones and all. Oh, and shopping at Harrods and going to see Les Mis. I guess most of the book is loosely tied to our real life travels. Loosely, mind you. My imagination did a fair amount of embellishing of the story as I was writing it. There are several things that occur in your story that had me laughing out loud. I seriously googled Shrove Tuesday pancake race and I have to say I have never laughed so hard. Did you get to see an actual race while visiting Britain? Isn’t that the funniest thing you have ever heard?! I didn’t get to see an actual race. We visited the town of Olney, where the races are held each year, but we were there in November. As we entered the town we saw the sign of a woman in a headscarf running while flipping a pancake in a skillet. We asked what it meant and could not believe all the straight-faced locals who gave us the same answer of the yearly race on Shrove Tuesday. The more I read about it, I knew the characters in this book needed to actually “witness” the race. I’ve seen videos of the races. One day I just might have to return for Lenten season and be an eye-witness. If I do go, I’m definitely returning to TeaCups, the cozy tea house Julee and I visited with our writer friend, Marion. (There’s a photo in the back of the book in the scrapbook section!) Not only do you have us traveling with you on these great adventures but you weave God’s word and how he is teaching you. What is one thing God taught you while traveling to Britain? The beauty and brevity of life. When I stood by the grave of C.S. Lewis I wondered if he ever felt his life slipped by too quickly. Each of us is given only so many years and so many opportunities and then it’s on to eternity. I thought of all the times I’ve spent hours and days fretting and fussing and fuming instead of reveling in the wonder and the beauty of God’s promises being fulfilled. When I stop and remember God’s goodness, I trust Him and His peace prevails. The verse I chose for Sisterchicks Go Brit! is from Joshua 23:14. “Deep in your hearts you know that every promise of the LORD your God has come true. Not a single one has failed!” I believe that with all my heart. So why do I doubt? Why do I test my Lord and ask Him yet again to prove Himself to me? Why do I not sink myself into the truth of His faithfulness and just delight in the beauty of His majesty? We are only here for such a short time. Why not be gratefully giddy for His goodness every day as His promises are fulfilled? That’s how I want to live. That’s true freedom right there. That’s peace and that’s real joy. It’s like having a little secret with God. All the circumstances of the day can be awful and overwhelming but when I remember deep in my heart that every promise of the Lord my God has come true, I feel this little smirk of a grin rising up inside. I know how all this is going to turn out. God wins! And I’m on His side. On the Sisterchicks website you mention that God changes women's lives through their friendships with one another. Could you talk a bit more about this? God changes lives through the Word – His Word. It’s fascinating to me the way that the words one woman says to another woman can go deep inside and change her forever. Those words can be life-giving or they can be life-destroying. Women have much power in their words. Do we know that, as women? I mean, do we really understand the power that has been entrusted to us simply through how we use words? I have women in my life who have given me life-words and women who have given me death-words. You have experienced the same, I’m sure. You know the difference. I have come to trust and cherish the women who have given me life words. They are my truest friends. How rare and wonderful it is when two women can trust their hearts to each other and know that her friend is giving her truth. This is the hallmark of authentic friendship – the giving and receiving and re-gifting of truth. Even if the truth is hard to hear, if it is planted in the heart with tender, loving hands, the truth grows up and bears good fruit. A woman’s hands, the hands of a true friend, can plant truth in our hearts differently than the way a spouse or pastor or parent can plant the very same word. What a gift! Thank you, Father, for the gift of friendship and the way You lead women to demonstrate Your heart to other women through the tenderness of words. Wow. Thank you. Tea and chocolate seem to be two of your favorite things. What kind of tea and what kind of chocolate? English Breakfast tea with milk, please. And dark, bitter chocolate, if you will. Lovely! Are there any projects in the works that you can tell us about? And can I come too--just kidding. Hee hee! I seriously would love to one day lead a small group of women to some of the places I’ve been for the purpose of personal retreat and refreshment before the Lord. I love this world the Father made. He gave us all things richly to enjoy and there are some places on His earth that are too wonderful to keep to myself. Perhaps down the road, I’ll set up some small group tours to some of these places. Sisterchicks Tours. Oh, I’d love to do that! But, you asked about projects, didn’t you? As in writing projects. I just finished a Christmas novella that will release this fall and is titled, “Engaging Father Christmas”. It’s the sequel to “Finding Father Christmas”, a novella that came out in October, 2007. Both these stories just happen to be set in England because, as I mentioned earlier, I do love England and I had more than one story in me to tell that was set in that delightful place. I’m also having SO much fun writing the Katie Weldon Series. The second book in that series, “On a Whim” comes out this fall (2008) as well. And of course, there is another Sisterchicks story in the works. Details will be revealed on my website and through the Robin’s Nest newsletters. So, please come by www.robingunn.com for more details. I’d love to have you sign up to receive my newsletter so I can let you know about upcoming releases. Is there any special Bible verse the Lord has recently laid on your heart? Yes, as a matter of fact. This is the one I wrote in the front of my journal this year. I’ve been meditating on if for the past few months. I was speaking at a private school in Hawaii last month to 400 high school students on the benign topic of why I write novels. I quoted this verse to them and got all choked up. The truth pierced me. This really is what it’s all about. This is what matters. Nothing else. This is why I write and this is what I write about: God’s wonderful kindness and His love. Here’s the verse. Acts 20:24, NLT Robin you are such a joy and I greatly enjoyed your book. Thank you for sharing that powerful verse. If you would like to win a copy of Sisterchicks Go Brit! this month, please visit CWO's Book Draw page: Click here. _____________________________ ©2008, Laurel Wreath
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CWO Cover
Dr. Seuss once said, “
My best friend, Donna, and I were sitting in lawn chairs one afternoon about six years ago. We were comparing our underarm flab and Donna said, “What kind of friends are we that we can sit here and do this?” I said we were cool chicks and she said we were more like sisters. I said, “Then we must be Sisterchicks.” She stopped me and said, “Write that down! You were just saying the other day you were trying to figure out what God wanted you to write about next. That’s it! Write about us. Write about friends. Write about Sisterchicks.”
