“…Even as a child I

was already grieving the passing of all I knew

and loved, as if preparing myself for

my older years of intense timesickness.”

-from “Last Supper,” in All These Ghosts by Silas House

August is a month of timesickness for me.

As I wrote in today’s Reformed Journal blog, “Maybe I’ve stolen, or co-opted, the image from Tuck Everlasting, but when I visualize the shape of a year, I see a Ferris wheel with June, July, and August at the tippy top. I’m a summer girl—and every August I find myself wanting to pause time, to stop the ride, to swing peacefully and enjoy the view from the peak of these warm, slower months.”

Letting go — of summer, of memories, of time — is no easy task. And as I write about in the blog, I tend to need to go the long way through transitions, taking a few extra detours as I process the passage of time.

Sometimes, when it’s my turn to write each month for the RJ, I search for something fresh and new to say, a story to uncover. Sometimes, I simply write what is aching in my bones and heaviest on my heart. This month is the latter.

Who am I to mourn a Ferris wheel coming down, a beach chair folded up for the year, when someone down the street is mourning a diagnosis, a marriage, a parent? And yet. Scripture doesn’t seem to rank its griefs. Ecclesiastes doesn’t qualify whether a season is big or important or challenging enough to warrant its turning—there continues to be a time to plant, a time to uproot, to weep, to laugh. The acknowledgment of the ways time keeps marching on requires both a holding on and a letting go.

Maybe the biblical-ness isn’t in the size of the ache but in the noticing of it at all, in allowing ourselves to love the world enough to feel a bit bruised and aged by it.

I refer more than once in today’s essay to my favorite children’s classic, one I’ve read and re-read and studied over and over, E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web.

It’s especially fitting, then, that a new podcast I’m featured on comes out today, discussing Charlotte’s Web and why I think all adults should re-read it! You can find my conversation with Katie Ginn from Oh My Word with Katie on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or as a video on YouTube.

The Charlotte’s Web conversation with Katie is actually Part II of a conversation with Katie. The first, focusing on Enemies in the Orchard, covers everything from the book’s historical background to questions about how I tackle issues of faith as a writer. (Spoiler alert: Neat and tidy is not the goal.) You can also listen to the episode on Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, or YouTube.

It’s a podcast season for me over here, because this week the Englewood Review of Books also released another recent conversation I’m thrilled to have been invited to join. Hosted by Lindsey Cornett (Managing Editor of Englewood Press) and featuring recent Newbery Honor winner Karina Yan Glaser, it was great fun to discuss the role of storytelling and imagination in a life of faith, and the ways faith and spirituality show up in children's literature.

As I write, I keep psychologist Carl Rogers's wisdom at the top of my mind: "What is most personal is most universal." This felt especially true earlier this summer, when I found myself returning to memories of my Grandpa Woody, who quit school in eighth grade, was forced into a quiet wedding in the family farmhouse because my grandma was pregnant, and went on to raise five kids in a 1,000-square-foot house. A weight of shame followed him throughout his life — and yet he was one of the kindest, funniest, most generous, and genuine people I've ever known. I wrote about him bringing home warm Pop-Tarts from his factory job, and the profound impact he's had on me personally. But I hope that in telling that personal story, others might find some universal truths of their own.

If you’ve made it this far, thanks for joining me here — for sharing in these words, and in our personal, and yet universal, truths. I'm always happy to hear from you, and thankful for the ways writing connects us across time and space.

With gratitude,

Dana

Over Memorial Day weekend, my husband and son went out fishing, and I tagged along with my books and notebook to enjoy the quiet(ish) morning. While they fished, I enjoyed the morning sun, the coolness coming off the water, and began my Summer Bucket List.

Sharing with hope you share what’s on your list too — or what I might add.

Read what sounds good at any particular moment, on any given day, even if that means I have six books going at once. Even if that means I’m not making “adequate” progress on my 2026 Goodreads Challenge. Remember that I’m not racing to finish; I’m being watered by good words. (And like I used to tell my students, you’re allowed to abandon books that are not for you.)

Take notes. My friend and mentor, Natalie, helped me concoct this mantra recently — and it’s working. I don’t need to wait for the perfect moment, the perfect idea. I may not make significant progress on my next book today, but I can take notes about that Blue Jay that visits me every morning on my back porch, how she seems to look me right in the eye. Or how my outdoor rocking chair has been squeaking at every one of the 50 baseball games I’ve been to since April, and I keep saying I’ll fix it, but I never do. Or about how I rarely bought my kid’s school pictures, but saved the proofs that came with a free bookmark with their watermarked faces, and when I page through old books I’m greeted by the eight-year-old, lopsided, before-braces grin of a kid whose hair is still windblown from recess.

Rescue pots of flowers from roadside stands. Find them a place in the yard or the porch. Don’t worry about it all being a bit mismatched. My yard will never be featured in a magazine, but it can be, to steal a Jack Ridl phrase: perfectly imperfect.

Pilfer tomatoes from my parent’s garden and make all the recipes with fresh tomatoes I’ve saved up on my phone all winter. The internet listens and knows I’ll stop scrolling for even the memory of the flavors of a fresh tomato. By July, I can make it happen in real time.

Unplug. Write off screens more often. Transfer later, if desired.

Read more poetry. Currently, I’m reading The Life by Carrie Fountain, an author I met at the Calvin Festival of Faith and Writing. This quote serves as the book’s epigraph, and I may consider all summer:

“But somewhere there is an ancient enmity between our daily life and the great work. Help me, in saying it, to understand it.”

- Rainer Maria Rilke

Since I seem to be drawn to writing and pondering how enmity plays out (“deep-seated, often mutual, feeling of hatred or hostility, or ill towards someone”) — I wonder if there isn’t a slice, an ounce, a sliver, a small opening between our daily toil and our great work. Perhaps there is more overlap between those conflicting forces than we often perceive or can witness in the moment. But in pausing, in paying attention, and opening up to the possibility, we get glimpses of it. In Fountain’s poems, she lives in that sliver of light. Which I why I need to read more poems this summer. And maybe write some, too.

Breath prayers. I too often hold my breath, clench my jaw, tighten my shoulders. Though the world is hard, I don’t want to live armored up, constantly bracing for its impact. Breath prayers can help. There are lots of old, traditional ones, but my favorite is inspired by my Patron Saint Anne Lamott and works well with some inhales and exhales:" Help me, help me, help me. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you. Wow, wow, wow.”

That’s is for now, but I’m curious, what’s on your list? What am I missing?

What I’ve been writing…

Earlier in May, a new essay, Nothing is Small about our Talk, was published in the Reformed Journal, and inspired years ago by a conversation with a another parent about the kind of comments his young daughter often received — mainly about her appearance. If you want to get a start on that goal to read more poetry, you can start with Jack Ridl’s poem on small talk at the end of the essay.

This week, the In All Things blog from Dordt University shared another new essay: Why Childrens Books were Never Meant for Just Kids. I hope it might make you consider re-reading an old childhood favorite, or expanding your search for your next read. (Even if it’s the seventh book on your shelf.)

Wishing you moments of peace and wonder this June.

With gratitude,

Dana

Each time I sit down to write, I must remind myself to lower my expectations.

To do so, it to give ourselves permission to begin again, messily, imperfect, as we are. To have too high of expectation for ourselves—and our writing—can be crippling.

Expectations get in our way, and they get in the way of the words.

I write each month for The Reformed Journal, and though I enjoy having written, I don’t always enjoy every moment of the writing. I procrastinate. I trick myself into using voice-to-text to mumble a few stream-of-consciousness ideas into the Notes app on my phone.I bribe myself to sit down and risk a few first sentences. I tell myself, “Just write a short, bad essay this month.”

I was recently gifted an Advance Reading Copy of Spiritual Direction for Writers: Everyday Rituals for Your Writing Life by Charlotte Donlon, which will release in early September from Here Below Books, a new imprint of Eerdmans Publishing, focused on "books for the subversive work of being human."

One of the book’s first gifts is a “Pause with Toni Morrison.” Donlon recounts watching a video of Morrison in conversation with Frank McCourt. When asked, “How do you survive, whole, in a world where we are all victims of something?”

Morrison’s response contains layers and layers of wisdom, for us as writers and humans: “Sometimes you don’t survive in whole; you just survive in part.”

Donlon responds:

“When I started breathing again, I began to release something I was holding on to. Has wholeness always been an impossible goal? Who made wholeness a requirement for flourishing? Do too-high expectations or goals for life and the writing life and everything else prevent one from gaining whatever the present, imperfect circumstances are offering?

When I also started breathing again, I underlined most of the page. Yes, my too-high expectations for writing and life often prevent me from receiving the gifts of the imperfect present.

I’m taping these words to my desk — and continuing on in the book!

The revolutionary act of reading together: Why book clubs could save the world

Speaking of the Reformed Journal, last week I shared a new essay about the powering of gathering to discuss books (or anything else) together.

I wasn’t surprised by the warm response from book club members. One of my greatest privileges is visiting book clubs that choose to read my book together. Some have gathered for just a few months; some for more than a generation. Most gather around food and drinks as much as words. All are a joy and a testament to the power of a community that takes words and stories seriously.

Gratitude for Communities of Readers & the Teachers who Lead Us

Also embedded inside last week’s book club essay in the Reformed Journal, you’ll read about the joy of attending the Calvin Festival of Faith & Writing as a speaker this year. After years of enjoying the Festival as a participant, it was a full-circle moment to step on stage to share about my own experiences as a writer, meet and chat with other authors, and bask in the glow of being among so many kind, generous, curious readers.

The spring has also been full of school visits. What a joy to be with young readers.

At Chicago Christian School I was invited to participate in a Young Authors Conference, which held particular meaning for me because attending Young Authors Conferences were core memories of my own elementary school experience. What a delight to talk to the students not just about my book and being a writer, but about how similar events at their age shaped me. I dug up my old scrapbook and shared excerpts from my 1st grade book, “Love my Class,” and my third grade hit, “Chairs, Chairs, Chairs.” (I guess I was destined to marry a seating engineer someday!)

I always tell people: I became a writer because my teachers made me believe I was already one.

At a recent countywide literacy meeting, we began by sharing reading memories from our childhoods. It was such a joy to hear about the books, moments, and teachers that formed our identities as readers and writers.

What memories do you have of reading and writing as a child? I’d love to hear them.

With gratitude,

Dana

I’ve been putting together a collaborative session for middle and high school writing teachers about moving students past compliance —and past the easy allure of AI—to work that matters.

After digging through books and articles, looking for a magic strategy or perfect prompt, I was reminded that what I’m looking for doesn’t exist.

There is no magic pill. Writing is hard. Teaching writing is hard.

Most writers I know occasionally must remind people that writing is not something they do for “fun,” anymore than a doctor, engineer, or UPS delivery driver does their work for fun. Yes, writing can be thrilling, rewarding, life-giving, centering, fulfilling, and even necessary—but it’s not equivalent to, per se, spending a day lounging on the beach.

Perhaps one of the best things we can do, as writers or teachers of writing, is to be more honest with ourselves. Writing will require something of us, of our students. The progress will be slow most days. We will write terrible drafts and have ideas that will seem glimmering and full of potential one moment and like something rotting in the back of the refrigerator the next.

In January, in my monthly blog for the Reformed Journal, I wrote about my word for 2026: slow.

This year, I’m working on slowing down.

Slow means leaving my Christmas tree up days, maybe even weeks, after the holiday because I’m not ready to part with its light.

Slow means not avoiding “friction” – resisting the simplicity of AI. It reminds us that life is not about discovery, not always finding the fastest and easiest way from point A to point B.

Slow means choosing books over the internet.

Slow means more deep breaths; more pauses. It’s remembering Victor Frankl’s wisdom that “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

Slow means walking to pay attention, to notice, to feel the joy and privilege of movement, not to beat a record set by the watch on my wrist.

Slow means savoring food instead of scarfing it down.

Slow means listening more, harder. It’s attempting to understand someone else before I jump to my own conclusions or share my own thoughts.

Slow means feeling the pain of the world. It’s allowing the news to continue to break my heart rather than turning brittle or apathetic.

Slow means intentionality. Considering how my time is best spent—not in a legalistic way, but in leaning away from instant gratification to something more sustaining.

Slow means grace. For myself. For others.

I’d like to happily report that today, Feb. 11, my Christmas tree is still up. I’ve taken the ornaments down, all except for the snowflakes, and declared it a winter tree. Last weekend, I told my family that maybe it was time to take it down. They protested. Everyone seems to need the light.

But in other ways, I still struggle to go slow. I struggle to respond more slowly, let emails go unread in my inbox, or breathe when I feel stressed.

And yet, I wouldn’t have picked a resolution that I had already mastered.

Though I’ve had no trouble going slow when it comes to my writing. In fact, I’ve been a bit stuck.

I’m often asked, in the kindest and most caring of ways, what I’m currently working on or when my next book is coming out.

I answer, “It’s been slow.” I am writing, but it’s been my monthly blogs, and then lots of stops and starts with new ideas, trying on different projects for size, and turning down some dead-end roads.

(Here is where I also feel a teensy bit defensive and may also mention: I also have a demanding, full-time job in education, three teenagers, a dog, and a husband who also likes my attention.)

But as I work with teachers and students who are writing, I am reminded that wrangling words into sentences, paragraphs, and pages of meaning is slow work. It’s hard work.

I admire those writers who seem to carry on more quietly. The ones without splashy Instagram pages or a constantly updated website, but who, every few years, or even once every decade or lifetime, produce something really remarkable.

I often think of two of my favorite writers, Kent Haruf and Gary Schmidt, who both write in an old barn behind their homes. Last time I heard him speak, Schmidt was still using a typewriter and finding the replacement ribbons harder and harder to find. And Haruf, who died in 2014, told about writing blindfolded to try to ward off his editing self too soon.

Our world has urgent problems. There are times for immediate action. And our world needs wisdom, too. Our world needs those who are deliberate about what they say, those who craft stories with more nuance and depth than could ever be communicated through a 10-word meme.

I’m reminding myself, 42 days into 2026, that slow is still okay.

A couple of shameless plugs for what I have been writing:

I will continue to rave about the Reformed Journal because the daily essays that are posted there often save me. I started writing for RJ in 2018, and it catapulted me from someone who wanted to write to someone who found time to do it. I credit those first few pieces published in the journal for giving me the courage to apply — and complete — an MFA in Creative Writing, a program I could do while continuing my work in education.

Some of my most recent pieces at the RJ:

• February 2026: A Reckoning at the Bird Feeder

• January 2026: A Resolution in One Word

• December 2025: The Surprise of Light

Looking to Spring

We’re in the claws of winter here in Michigan, just coming out of a long span of blizzards, negative windchills, and school closings. I’m already looking forward to spring — and to the Calvin Festival of Faith and Writing. I’ve attended for years, and am thrilled to be a speaker this year. I’ll be doing a panel discussion with Kate Albus, author of A Place to Hang the Moon and Nothing Else but Miracles, as well as talk on writing and memory.

I’m also eager to hear writers like Barbara Brown Taylor, Laurie Halse Anderson, Ross Gay, Ariel Lawhon, and many others. I hope to see some of you there.

In closing…

For the past six months, I’ve been making my way through Suleika Jaouad’s The Book of Alchemy, which contains short essays from a multitude of authors with journal prompts.

I’ll end with a quote that Jaouad shares in a section of the book on Fear. These words that I underlined in my copy of the book are ones that perhaps my fingers also needed to type, and my heart needs to hear as much as any of you:

“You don’t have to be particularly brave. You just have to be a tiny bit more interested in something than you are frightened of it.” -Elizabeth Gilbert

With gratitude,

Dana

I revisited that collection of books this weekend, and considered what I’d add to the list today.

I’d begin with books written by dear friends: my friend and mentor, Natalie Dykstra’s ambitious and alluring biography, Chasing Beauty: The Life of Isabella Stewart Gardner, deserves a place. As does, All at Once, the newest poetry collection from my lifelong teacher, Jack Ridl. (The cover, painted by his daughter, is enough reason to buy it.)

And of course, I’d add the books of my dear, late friend and “writing soul mate,” Elizabeth Felicetti— Unexpected Abundance and Irreverent Prayers: Talking to God When You’re Seriously Sick (the latter co-written with Samantha Vincent Alexander)—published just before she died.

Since I read it in June, I think I’ve recommended The Correspondent by Virginia Evans millions of times, and I want to re-read Patrick Ryan’s Buckeye just so I can study his craft more carefully.

I can’t believe my original list didn’t include Nadia Bolz-Weber or Barbara Brown Taylor. But I’m glad I have them now.

I log into the Reformed Journal, where I am a contributor, daily. The Journal publishes books now, too, and I’d especially recommend Telling Stories in the Dark: Finding Healing and Hope in Sharing Our Sadness, Grief, Trauma, and Pain, written by Jeff Munroe, the RJ’s editor.

And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the book that has shaped my life most in the last few years: Enemies in the Orchard, the one I wrote and have been so grateful to share with you.

What books would you put on your gratitude list? I’d love to hear your recommendations.

Baking

I hope, just because the fall is (almost) over, you’re not done with apple pie. We got 12 inches of snow last night here in Michigan, but you can bet I have apples from my parents’ orchard stored for baking. I am especially fond of making (and sharing) Dutch Apple pie, and a few friends reached out last week because they were preparing one for Thanksgiving dinner.

There is a recipe for a Dutch Apple pie, as well as make-your-whole-house-smell-delicious applesauce, and the apple bread my grandma baked in cleaned-out aluminum cans, inside the Enemies in the Orchard Teacher’s Guide. The one revision I’d suggest to the posted recipe is adding a 1/2 cup or so of oatmeal to that crumble crust—but that might be one of the few things my Grandma and I disagreed on, so do what you prefer.

The Fortune of Attention

I mentioned the Reformed Journal above. Last month, I wrote about a fortune cookie that told me to work harder, and how I’m learning that productivity isn’t the only path to purpose. I come from people who grow things you can hold in your hands. My work—teaching, parenting, writing—yields a quieter kind of harvest. You can read the entire essay here: The Fortune of Attention.

Wherever you are, I hope you are warm, well, and have a good book nearby.

With gratitude,

Dana

On July 23, I cracked open a fresh journal and began a new 100-Day Challenge — a promise to myself to write something every single day. I started strong, but as fall arrived and my family’s schedule grew fuller, my steady rhythm faltered. Today marks Day 88 of the challenge, but I’m writing entry number 67 — meaning I’ve missed about twenty days along the way.

My first instinct is to scold myself for falling short. Instead, I’m choosing to release that guilt and lean into the momentum I do have. I’ve written 76% of the days during the past three months, and that’s something. I plan to keep going, to keep journaling until I hit 100 — and beyond.

This challenge was inspired by The Book of Alchemy: A Creative Practice for an Inspired Life by Suleika Jaouad. The book is a collection of gathered wisdom from a hundred writers and artists who offer insights and daily prompts to get my pen moving.

In one of those reflections, “The Art of Dailiness,” Michael Bierut shares the origin story of the 100-Day Project, which began when he committed to creating a drawing every day starting January 1, 2002. “The practice had less to do with the output,” Bierut explains, “and more with getting myself into the proper frame of mind for the rest of the day.”

Bierut’s 100-Day assignment for himself became one he gave to the students in his graphic design program at Yale — the idea caught on, and a myriad of 100-Day Assignment variations have since followed. People have taken on 100 days of sketches, photographs, handwritten notes, poems, or playlists. Some paint a tiny canvas each day or record a one-minute video. One young woman spent time memorizing a long sermon her grandfather, a preacher, often gave and then recited it for her classmates after 100 days.

The form varies, but the aim remains the same: to show up with intention, create a daily rhythm, and see what unfolds over time.

What my 100ish Day Assignment is teaching is that it’s easy to let the pressure to be great get in the way of doing what’s good. It’s tempting to tell ourselves that we can’t do something if we can’t do it well enough, but that lie too often keeps us from the messy and beautiful process that can evolve from simply showing up.

A few other things I’ve been writing lately:

I wrote a bit about wrestling with my first draft thoughts, and the importance of fleshing them out in my journal before going public with them, in this Reformed Journal blog earlier this month: Wrestle with Your First Draft Thoughts, but Keep Them Offline.

I also had the privilege of recently reviewing Christy Berghoef’s new book, Rooted: A Spiritual Memoir of Homecoming.

As a monthly contributor on the Reformed Journal blog, I also wrote in September about Three Back-to-School Story Problems Revealing a Crisis in Education. And reflected on my family’s visit to the same vacation spot 17 years later in Return to the River.

Thanks for showing up here and reading this far. I hope your week is filled with some messy, beautiful moments of presence.

With gratitude,

Dana

There is something about summer reading.

I love to read outside: on the porch, on a boat while my kids fish, on the beach, next to a lake, while floating in a pool.

As an educator, summer is a slowdown season for me. And books provide both an escape and the space to wrestle with reality.

I loved the summer-ness of my June reading pile, including Anne Tyler’s new novel, Three Days in June, which I had received in the spring, but didn’t open until the calendar turned. (I had meant to finish it in exactly three days, as well, but alas, that didn’t quite happen.)

I love to read in season — to find books that pair well with the shifts in weather and life. One of my favorite new historical fiction books, Frozen River by Ariel Lawton, with its wintery cover, had to be saved and savored in the winter. I re-read Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These every Christmas and found more appreciation for the year’s coldest seasons from Katherine May’s Wintering.

I’ve re-read and studied Charlotte’s Web (and the Annotated Version of the book) a few times as an adult and it’s all spring to me— spring on the farm and the saving of the little runt pig. Anne of Green Gables, Tom Lake, The Great Gatsby, and Lilac Girls all are spring books.

Enemies in the Orchard is set over a single fall in 1944, and I hope, a quintessential autumn book. I love hearing from readers who say it transported them to an orchard, where they could smell the apples, see the trees, and taste the cider. When I wrote it, I wanted the orchard to be its own character. Since I was returning to my grandpa’s old orchard in my mind, I wanted desperately to bring that place back to life on the page.

What are you reading this summer? And what are your favorite seasonal reads? I’d love to know in the comments below.

What I’ve been writing…

Though it wasn’t published in the winter when I tend to re-read it, I enjoyed reviewing Small Things Like These for the Reformed Journal, and especially, musing about the small stack of books I own that I return to over and over.

I also wrote about my tricky and tumultuous relationship with social media in WWJP: What Would Jesus Post?

I keep coming back to…

I began this newsletter with a line about summer reading providing both an escape and the space to wrestle with reality. That also sums up my summer so far: I want to set aside the quiet moments to breathe, to rest, to enjoy Michigan’s beauty and vibrance. I am also wrestling with the hurt and pain in the world, in our country, in our communities, in families.

I finished up a novel this morning, Sarah Damoff’s debut novel, The Bright Years. This line from its final pages is sticking with me:

“You must not measure salvation like an ingredient that’s either there or not. Yes, salvation can be a heroic moment of rescue. But more often, it’s smaller. Slower.”

May we all find ways to seek small, slower moments of rescue — of salvation— this summer.

With gratitude,

Dana

Families entered the Ella Sharp Museum and simply shared their school district with local teacher volunteers, and then were ushered into an auditorium to receive a bag of 10 books, based on their age. My book was given away in the 6th-8th grade bag, and I had the joy of sitting nearby to sign books and talk with those who came by.

The organizers also gave me a box or two of extra books that I could sign and give away. I loved not having to collect any money, but just freely sign and hand a book to anyone who might want one.

Though categorized as a middle-grade read, I signed books for 5-year-olds and 80-year-old grandparents who were spending the day with their grandkids. I gave copies away to 5th graders who wandered in the museum in their uniforms and cleats, sweaty from playing on the nearby soccer fields, as well as their moms and dads who picked up the book and said, “I think I might like this, too.”

“It’s for everyone,” I told those who asked what age group my book is written for.

Age recommendations on books are not an exact science. When I was writing Enemies in the Orchard, I often thought of the 8th graders I taught in my classroom for more than a decade, but I imagined all ages reading it. I wrote it for other English teachers like me, I wrote it for my family who miss and long to return to our old orchard that is now bulldozed and gone, and I wrote it for myself—the adult trying to make sense of the world and the adolescent that still is buried deep inside me.

Katherine Rundell, in her tiny but miraculous book, Why You Should Read Children’s Books, Even Though You Are So Old and Wise, writes, “I’ve been writing children’s fiction for more than ten years now, and I still would hesitate to define it. But I do know, with more certainty than I usually feel about anything, what it is not: it’s not exclusively written for children. When I write, I write for two people: myself, age twelve, and myself, now, and the book has to satisfy two distinct but connected appetites.”

Rundell goes on:

“So what I try for when I write—failing often, but trying—is to put down in as few words as I can the things that I most urgently and desperately want children to know and adults to remember. Those who write for children are trying to arm them for the life ahead with everything we can find that is true. And perhaps, also, secretly, to arm adults against those necessary compromises and necessary heartbreaks that life involves: to remind them that there are and always will be great, sustaining truths to which we can return.”

When my agent and I were pursuing publishers, she sent my manuscript to dozens of publishing houses, describing the book as a Young Adult novel. Some of the rejections were interesting: “it was not edgy enough,” the book was “too serious and sad,” “historical fiction isn’t selling well in the commercial market.”

In August of 2022, when Zonderkidz reached out with interest to purchase and publish the manuscript, they asked to do so under the middle grades category, to which I consented. Several months later, when the advanced reader copies were sent out to reviewers, the marketing material on the back said it was written for 9-12 year olds.

My dear teacher and mentor, Jack Ridl, contacted me right away to let me know a mistake must have been made. “I noticed on the back of your book it says for children ages 9-12. I truly can’t imagine that. Even when I read it , I felt it was adult. Did they perhaps mean for grades 9-12?”

I’m so grateful my editor and publisher were up for a discussion. I wrote them an email expressing Jack’s concerns were also mine.

I told them that I was losing sleep over the age guideline issue. As a middle school teacher, I resonated deeply with a recent Publisher's Weekly article about a lack of 13-15 year-old protagonists, and also pointed out that of my very favorite middleish-grade novel, Orbiting Jupiter by Gary Schmidt, had the age designation of 12+.

By saying who the book was for, I worried we were also implying who it wasn’t for.

The book’s marketing materials now list the book as ages 9 and up, though I often tell people it’s for ages 9-99. I’m so grateful my publisher was open to the conversation and willing to remove the age limit from the book’s marketing materials.

I’m in favor of removing any obstacle that might keep us from a good story. Especially something as arbitrary are our age.

“The human heart is not a linear train ride,” Rundell says.

And to that I echo: Amen—and thank goodness for stories that allow us to take the scenic route.

World War II for Kids

In a similar vein, check out this article published in last week’s Wall Street Journal about How World War II Became the Hottest Book Craze…for Kids.

Proving that there is a market for historical fiction for middle school kids, Huxley, an an eighth-grade boy says, “We should be allowed to know what happened so that we don’t make the same mistakes.”

When the Light Takes Longer…

In some personal family news, since I’ve last written here on Substack, my father-in-law passed away. It’s been a hard couple of months, but filled with more joy and celebration than I expected.

I’ve had a chance twice to sort through some thoughts in my contributions to the Reformed Journal.

One blog posted the day after Easter, the day after our family gathered to sit by the bedside of my father-in-law, whose earthly body was failing and at the same time celebrate both the birthdays of both my son and my mother-in-law.

I won't remember what we ate or what we wore that Easter. We didn't have a perfectly set table. And yet, we celebrated. Easter isn't theoretical when you’re holding life and death in the same breath. In the bright rays of morning or the dark silence of night, I was reminded of hope that holds, even when things are breaking.

When my time comes round to write for the RJ blog each month, I wrestle to land on a topic, trying to discern what words or stories I'm being called to share. In the midst of that week, my mind went back to earlier in April on a drive home from Florida. I kept thinking of how long those pre-dawn hours can feel, and how when I'm driving in what feels like infinite darkness, I plead for the light.

And the light usually takes longer to appear than I hope. But like Easter, hope also isn't theoretical, but adversarial. We fight for it, cling to it. Sometimes, hope is the most defiant thing we do.

Landing Softly

Then, last week I wrote about how I’ve learned to do a box jump.

A soft landing means bending your knees and absorbing the impact rather than hitting the ground with straight legs and jarring force. While you work up the momentum and courage to jump, you also need to stay loose enough to land with some ease and flexibility.

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the importance of a soft landing—especially when it feels so natural to brace for the worst. I’ve been wondering what it looks like to live in a broken world without becoming brittle.

Thank you for reading with me. For being beside me. For giving me a place to land softly.

With gratitude,

Dana

I’m a list maker. My desk is cluttered with sticky notes, and I like the satisfaction of crossing items off a to-do list. I enjoy beginning the morning with the hope (and false security) of what might be accomplished in a day.

When I get stuck with my writing, I’ve also found making lists can get me unstuck. But, instead of a focus on accomplishment and getting things done, I’ve found this exercise liberates me. There is something about relinquishing the pressure of perfect sentences for a series of bullet points.

In a recent student workshop, I led a writing exercise called “12 Things” as a springboard to first drafts or character development:

Create lists of 12 things that define you. The possibilities are endless but could include: 12 life events, 12 songs, 12 movies, 12 books, 12 foods, 12 things you’ve lost, 12 things you’ve found, 12 places you’ve been, 12 places you can’t go back to, 12 memories from elementary school, 12 memorable meals, 12 things that make you happy, 12 rules you’ve broken, 12 things you were told over and over growing up.

If you’re a writer, or even if you don’t think of yourself as one, I encourage you to try writing a list of 12 Things. It’s amazing where our minds and memories can go, what they trudge up and weave together.

When I was young, I would try to imprint upon my heart and mind exactly how I was feeling — promising myself that I wouldn’t be one of those adults who forgot what it felt like to be 8, 9, 12, 15.

Writing alongside my workshop participants, I thought back to 12 Things that made me happy when I was 11:

• being invited

• sitting alone on my window seat

• the cold underside of my pillow

• a joke that landed with adults

• babysitting money to spend at the dollar store

• rollerskating on the little patch of cement in front of our garage (we lived on a gravel road with a gravel driveway)

• letters in the mail from my penpal cousin, Sara

• LipSmakers lip gloss

• just the right song coming on the radio and pushing “record” on my boom box

• my grandparents’ attention

• Parachute Day in gym class

• Sunday nights when my parents would turn on Oldies and dance

What 12 (or 13 or 15—there are no rules when it comes to these kind of writing experiments) things call you back somewhere? Allow you to catalog not your to-do list but your memories?

(Another) Invitation to Pause

On the topic of looking back and slowing down, last week on the Reformed Journal blog I shared about my struggle when I was younger, and even occasionally now, with a stutter or stammer.

If you, like me, have ever struggled with a stammer or stutter, you know the awkward pause—that moment of silence when a word gets stuck between your mind and your voice. No matter how clearly the sentences flow in your head, they refuse to exit effortlessly into the world.

And if you, like me, have struggled with a stammer or stutter, you also know the experience of someone jumping in to fill in that blank space, to attempt to rescue you—or rescue themselves, really, from the discomfort of the pause.

You also may know the gratitude and regard felt for another kind of listener. One who gives space and attention without expectation. One who allows time for your imperfection, for your pause. One who isn’t made uncomfortable with the weight of waiting and doesn’t rush to finish your sentences.

In his essay, “Getting the Words Out,” John Updike, another stutterer writes, “Those who stutter win, in the painful pauses of their demonstration that speech isn’t entirely natural, a respectful attention, a tender alertness. Words are, we are reassured, precious.”

You can read the entire essay—with an ode to both Mr. Rogers and my dear friend, Elizabeth Felecetti, here.

Enemies in the Orchard Paperback— Out Today!

I’m excited to share that today marks the release of Enemies in the Orchard paperback! My hope is this lower-cost edition will help the story find its way into even more hands, especially schools and classrooms. You can find the paperback edition wherever you buy books.

I am also honored and excited that my book is being released in paperback the same month as Chasing Beauty: The Life of Isabella Stewart Gardner, written by my friend and mentor, Natalie Dykstra.

Last week, Natalie shared on Instagram:

For 25 years, I’ve been talking with @danavanderlugt about writing and reading, first as professor and student at @hopecollege @hopeenglishdept. This month both of our recent books are out in PAPERBACK - mine 3/11 and hers 3/25. What could be better?! So proud of Dana’s incredibly moving book and so grateful to be friends and to continue with our conversation.

If you haven’t read Chasing Beauty, yet, now is the perfect time! The book—and its author—really are extraordinary.

March is Reading Month

And finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention March is Reading Month! As an educator, I’ve heard different perspectives on having a month dedicated to reading, as we do hope every month is a reading month. And yet, it’s good to give literacy and all its gifts a little extra attention!

It’s been a busy month for me, with extra events, celebrations, classroom visits, and book clubs— but I enjoy it all and am grateful for each invitation to discuss the power of story. We need it more now than ever.

With gratitude,

Dana

All I can think to say this morning, is please guide my attention to that which is worthy of it.

When I am overwhelmed by everything that has to get fixed in this broken-down world, show me what is MINE to do then please give me the strength to do it and the humility to rest afterwards.

-from A prayer for Monday Jan 20th, 2025, Nadia Bolz Weber

I once hung a quote near the door of my office, intending for it to catch my eye as I came and went. It read: “I am learning to love the sound of my feet walking away from things not meant for me.”The aspirational phrase for me is, “learning to love,” because several years and a couple of offices later, I’m still learning.

I want to love the sound of my feet walking away from things not meant for me, but it’s often hard to hear them over the noise in my head— a cacophony of guilt, doubt, and people-pleasing.

I’ve often struggled with discerning when a good “no” might make for a better “yes.” I am susceptible to falling into the trap of playing the busy game—convinced I’m called to the impossible mission of fulfilling every request for my time at work, at home, at church, or in my writing, and my social life. But the reality is that nestled inside every well-meaning, sometimes half-hearted yes, is a no to something else just as worthy.

Though time is finite, we’re constantly encouraged to believe that the right “hack” can bend it into something less rigid and linear. From books on writing to discipleship, cooking to education, there is no shortage of advice on how to best spend—or optimize, prioritize, or steward—our time.

A friend recently persuaded me to pick up Oliver Burkeman’s Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals because she found its message so contrary to the quick and easy solutions often promised to stretch time so we can fill it even more efficiently. Based on the premise that if you live to be 80, you’ll get 4,000 weeks, Burkeman describes his book as “an entertaining and philosophical but ultimately deeply practical guide to the alternative path of embracing your limits.”

I’m captivated by the book. Not because it’s making time management easier for me, but because Burkeman, a recovering “productivity geek,” is forcing me to admit that I won’t ever get to the bottom of my to-do list and that time hacks are a myth. He suggests that every task we complete means procrastinating on another. And that facing our limits is uncomfortable. And necessary.

Burkeman’s philosophical approach to time has got me wondering if there might be more freedom in letting go than in holding on too tight. If really want to embrace the upside economy of the Kingdom of God, how might I surrender the kind of self-importance that believes I can always do more, more, more? And how might walking away from things not meant for me open up other paths? Not necessarily easier paths, but better ones.

What if the fear of missing out (popularized as FOMO) was replaced with faith that God could be offering something better—even if it’s different from what I initially believed?

So maybe I’ve not completely learned how to love the sound of my feet walking away, but I am finding grace in slowing down, grounding the humility of my limitations, and better listening to my footsteps whichever way they’re pointed.

Borrowing lines from Nadia Bolz Weber’s prayer above, I will continue to ask God to let me hear the beauty of walking away from not only that which is not meant for me but the joy of walking toward that which has been created for all of us.

And as I look out the window on this frigid, snowy winter morning, happily distracted by the chirps of tiny birds visiting my feeder, I commit not to conquering my to-list today, but to accepting my limitations. And in that, opening up space to receive gifts I didn’t expect or earn.

Perhaps the practice of picking a word for the year has grown tired and cliché. I’m embracing it anyway.

Yesterday, on the first day of the year, I thought back over the words I’ve picked in past years: intentional, still, space, hope.

Since early this fall, one word has echoed in my mind: GENTLE.

I want to approach 2025 not focused on achieving, grinding, and hustling but instead with gentleness for myself and others.

• I want to go for more walks, but to breathe fresh air, rather than track and count the miles.

• I want to cook more vegetables but to care for myself and my family, rather than for the sake of the scale.

• I want to read more books—and do less scrolling—but not just to hit an arbitrary book or page goal.

• I want to turn off the news more often, not in an act of apathy, but because it may allow me to love others better.

• I want to be more present with others, but with less expectation, making space for where they are.

• I want to say no to the offer to drink when I’m mindlessly following social norms, rather than considering what feels best for me.

• I want to keep baking bread, making homemade soup, and trying new recipes. I want to approach cooking as an act of care rather than a chore.

• I want to listen—and hear— my kids better.

• I want to pursue new adventures and wander to new places, and also embrace stillness and the quiet of home.

• I want to look for and expect joy in expected and unexpected places, in the ordinary and extraordinary moments.

I started my New Year’s morning by reading an essay on the Reformed Journal blog: “No Crumbs,” by Jennifer Holberg. It was just what I needed. I hope you’ll take a few minutes today to read it.

Holberg directed my attention to two bits of wisdom from two female writers I admire. The first, Nadia Bolz-Weber, who in a recent note celebrating her 33^rd year of sobriety here on Substack, observed: “The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that the opposite of gratitude isn’t ingratitude, it’s entitlement.”

That’s it, isn’t it? How do we approach 2025 with the kind of gratitude that propels us to recognize the gifts around us?

I’m not interested in pursuing the kind of gentleness I describe above for the sake of being nice but in an act of resistance to my worldly notions that if I do more, accomplish more, and add to my list of achievements, I’ll be more deserving of the love of God and others. I want to pursue gentleness because grace has already been given. Because it’s a posture of holding my hands open rather than grasping and grabbing for more.

Holberg also ended her blog post with this Mary Oliver poem, which I want to re-share here:

Joy is not made to be a crumb. Now that is a resolution.

Happy New Year.

Dana

Watching “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” and re-reading Claire Keegan’s novella, Small Things Like These, are two treasured holiday traditions. The former is an annual, lighthearted viewing insisted on by my husband and three teenage sons; the latter happens in the quieter, contemplative moments I sneak alone.

Though vastly different holiday stories, this year, I noticed both contain a before-bed conversation in which each story’s husband and wife discuss their approach to the holiday season.

While in “National Lampoons,” Ellen Griswold tries to lower Clark’s wild expectations of a good old-fashioned family Christmas, in Small Things, Eileen tries to convince Bill that the injustice and cruelty he’s witnessed at the local convent is not a problem that concerns him, and he should, for the sake of the family, keep his head down and not stir up any trouble.

This morning, posted on The Reformed Journal, is a new essay I’ve written about those contrasting scenes, expectations, and a Muddier Christmas. I hope you’ll take a few moments to read it.

I also hope, if you’ve never read Small Things Like These, you’ll also make time this Christmas season to do so. It’s an impactful slender novel, and the audiobook is equally stunning.

A bit of news:

I’m happy to share that the softcover of Enemies in the Orchard will be released at the end of March!

We hope the paperback’s lower cost will make the book even more accessible to classrooms and schools.

If you are a teacher (or love someone who is), please feel free to reach out directly to me about options for using the book in class — or consult these classroom resources. I’m always more than happy to work with schools and teachers to make the book more meaningful—and real— for students.

Holiday Greetings

Finally, wherever this holiday season may find you, I hope there are small moments of peace and joy — and time with a good book!

Dana

Stephen King sits down for several hours to write six pages a day.

Ernest Hemingway wrote standing up.

Anne Lamott advises, “Butt in chair. Start each day anywhere. Let yourself do it badly.”

Kent Haruf wrote “blind,” pulling a wool cap over his eyes as he typed his stories on an old typewriter to keep himself from editing too soon.

I tend to write in small bursts because it’s often what my schedule allows. I patchwork my first drafts together—jotting here and there in my notebook, speaking into my Notes app as I drive, emailing myself notes as I walk the dog, composing in my head as I shower, dress, and blow dry my hair.

Somedays, it’s less like sitting my butt in a seat and waiting for the words and more like searching for scraps. More like quilting.

There are a multitude of books about how to write. And many of them I find helpful. (Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, Still Writing by Dani Shapiro, and Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg are well-worn and have been particularly helpful to me.)

And yet, I’m aware there is not a simple formula, there’s not one path for writers. It’s often whatever is needed to trick ourselves into sticking with it long enough to get the job done.

My son recently asked me what my dream job would be. The obvious answer was that I’d be a full-time writer, but then I instantly doubted myself. I once took a personal day off work, intending to write all day, and I was a little miserable. As someone who writes in bursts, it was more than a little difficult to force myself into a chair to pump out pages for a full day.

For me, the writing is what creeps up, what overflows and fills the margins of my life. It’s the tool that helps me make sense of the rest of my life—what’s happening when my fingers aren’t on a keyboard.

Growing up, I watched my dad race home from his 40-hour-a-week job to care for his apple orchard. And I wonder, did he love the orchard more because it was his reward after putting in the necessary hours? He went to his day job to earn a living but grew apples to make a life.

So how to write? I have no idea. It’s one word after another, in whatever way works for you.

Enemies in the Orchard in the Classroom

I was delighted to receive a letter from a 5th grade in Arizona in my mailbox this weekend. As a middle school teacher, I used to give an assignment to write a letter to a favorite author, so it meant a little extra to open that envelope. It’s a joy to know my book is reaching classrooms!

And thanks to Middle School Book Life for this great review, which includes a guide for using Enemies in the Orchard inside the classroom!

What I’ve been writing:

“Not every silence needs to be filled, not every heartache needs to be mended, and not every venting session needs a solution.”

In Holding Space: The Power of Paradox, a Reformed Journal blog, I share a bit more about why I wrote Enemies in Orchard in verse.

“Often saying less takes as much energy as saying more. Leaving room for white space isn’t a lack of intention, but more of it. It’s about trust—not in ourselves, but in the spirit’s ability to do more than we can ask or imagine or muster.”

What I’ve been reading:

Doug Brouwer is a fellow Reformed Journal author, and I’ve been enjoying his memoir Chasing the Wind: A Pastor’s Life. Here’s the latest passage I underlined:

How is it that I have given forty years of my life to this work and now, at long last, see things for what they are? Disillusionment is a gift, maybe, but it is a painful gift. I suppose it is God who shatters and dismantles our illusions. I suppose it is God who lays waste to our foolishness, our careerism, and our self-importance. I suppose it is God who allows us to be humbled, so that we can see at last what is real and what is of lasting importance.'

I found None of This Is True by Lisa Jewell on a list of best audiobooks, and it did not disappoint! I’m not an avid reader of psychological thrillers, but after some heavier books, I needed a page-turner. This audiobook features a full cast of characters — and is like listening to a true crime podcast mixed with a radio show. I couldn’t listen fast enough!

After a conversation about aging parents, a friend recommended Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End. It’s an eye-opening and important read by Atul Gawande, a surgeon who reckons with age-related frailty, serious illness, and approaching death.

I hope that wherever this holiday season finds you, small miracles, grace, and space may find you, too.

Dana

This week marks the one-year anniversary of the release of Enemies in the Orchard.

I’m so grateful for each reader, and especially for those who have reached out to say the story meant something to them. As an anniversary gift, I’ve heard from a handful of teachers over the last few days who have told me about reading excerpts aloud in class or about students borrowing a copy from their libraries.

More than book sales or marketing statistics, I love the image of the book in the hands of a reader. And as an educator, nothing beats knowing the story comes alive inside of classrooms.

When I worked on the book’s manuscript, I hoped a teacher’s guide with family favorite apple recipes, would be included in the back of the book. The teacher’s guide was made available online instead, but since it's apple season, and I just made my first apple crisp of the season, it seems like a good excuse to share my recipe here. (Disclaimer: I’m more of an estimator than a measurer, but I don’t think you can mess up an apple crisp if you use fresh, locally-grown apples!)

Dana’s Apple Crisp

Ingredients:

Apple Mixture:

• 6-7 apples

• 1/3 cup white sugar

• 1/4 cup flour

• 2 t. cinnamon

Topping:

• 1/2 cup flour

• 2/3 cup oats

• 2/3 cup brown sugar

• (optional) 1/3 cup pecans, whole or chopped

• 1 stick (1/2 cup) butter

• pinch of salt

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Peel and slice the apples. (Or don’t — leaving the skins on can add color and texture. And it’s a lot faster.) I like to mix varieties when I bake, but Cortlands are my favorite early-season baking apple. Later in the fall, you might use Jonathans, Braeburns, Galas, or Northern Spies. Drop apples directly into your greased baking dish or pie pan and toss with 1/3 c. white sugar and 1/4 cup flour. Sprinkle in about 2 T. cinnamon.

In a small bowl, combine 1/2 cup flour, 2/3 cup brown sugar, and 2/3 cup oats. Add pecans, if you’d like. You can also skip the oats if you prefer — my grandma did. (And she probably added extra butter.) Cut in one stick of diced cold butter. Add a pinch of salt, especially if your butter is unsalted. Mix with a fork until the butter is distributed and you have pea-sized crumbs. Pour the crumble on top of the apple mixture. If it seems like you have too much topping, you don’t. No one ever complains about too much crunchy topping.

Top the apples with the topping and bake for 50 minutes. Serve with ice cream; Butter Pecan is our family favorite. According to my husband, it’s just as good, if not better, warmed up the next day.

In Memory

In my book’s acknowledgments, I thanked Elizabeth Felicetti: “my writing soulmate, who checks in on me daily and helps me make my writing a priority. I am spoiled by her consistency, ruthless encouragement, and sharp humor.”

Elizabeth died a few weeks ago, and I miss her terribly. I wish we could be celebrating this year anniversary—and I wish she were sending me drafts of the new books she was working on.

I wrote about Elizabeth on the Reformed Journal blog recently. It’s strange sending words out into the world without having her read them first. She would have been first to share this newsletter.

Beginning Again

My husband asked me tonight how I feel one year after my first book’s release. Publishing is an exciting, but strange journey, and it’s easy to be tossed about by emotions. I try to be intentional about turning my mind from the anxiety, anticipation, and apprehension of reviews, ratings, and sales reports to dwell instead on the quiet and more tender gifts—a thoughtful question at a book club, a kind note from a reader, a heartfelt comment from a stranger on GoodReads.

In my yellowed and well-worn copy of Bird by Bird: Instructions on Writing and Life Anne Lamott reminds me:

I just try to warn people who hope to get published that publication is not all it is cracked up to be. But writing is. Writing has so much to give, so much to teach, so many surprises. That thing you had to force yourself to do—the actual act of writing—turns out to be the best part. It’s like discovering that while you thought you needed the tea ceremony for the caffeine, what you really needed was the tea ceremony. The act of writing turns out to be its own reward.

So, at the year mark, I’m celebrating not only the gifts that come from having written but from the act of writing itself. I’m grateful that I get to play with words. That the 26 letters of the alphabet provide endless opportunities for us to discover, delve, and dig. I’m grateful for stories that shake me. I’m grateful for the books that line my shelves, that fill my bed stand, and tower on my to-read pile. I’m grateful for words.

Here’s to the next chapter.

Dana

The introduction of John Green’s book of essays, The Anthroprocene Reviewed might just be my favorite part of the entire book. Before reviewing a wide array of facets of our human-centered planet—from the Indianapolis 500 and Piggly Wiggly to the QWERTY keyboard and Sunsets—Green begins by poking at the concept of the five-star scale.

While today, in the age of the internet, ratings have become as ubiquitous as pop-up ads (did you get just get one asking you to subscribe to this newsletter?) and spam calls, they are a relatively recent construct. Green teaches us that the five-star scale wasn’t often “used to rate hotels until 1979, and it wasn’t widely used to rate books until Amazon introduced user reviews.” Yet, today we find the five-star scale applied not just to books or vacation stops, but to everything from public restrooms to chewing gum.

Publishing a book has tainted my view of the five-star system.

Prior to having my own contribution featured among the millions of others on GoodReads, I used to be stingy with my five stars ratings of books, only giving them out in rare occasions. Even books I really enjoyed I often gave four stars, as if there was a limit on the number of 5/5 ratings I could dole out in my lifetime.

But now, as both the giver and receiver of stars, it all seems a little silly. Does everything really need a rating?

At this moment I’m writing from my sunporch on a humid summer morning, my dog stretched out near my feet, the fog lifting over the fields in the distance, a female cardinal calling to me from a decades old maple in my backyard —but could I review it? Does it need a critic?

“Slow, quiet morning, but a little sticky on the porch. Sunrise not as a pink as I prefer. Coffee to cream ratio could have been better. Writing, even a simple newsletter, is always harder than I wish. 3 stars.”

My sons recently asked me and my husband to rank the best pizza we’ve ever had. As we ran through our memories, Tim reminded them that part of enjoyment is context.

The spicy pizza we warmed up after the Lumineers concert was a favorite because we were starving and glowing from singing and dancing with our favorite band. The pizza we ate straight out of the box on a picnic table in a city park after a fishing trip was delicious because we were all together. The pizza we used to enjoy on Sunday nights with my Grandpa Woody was delicious because it gave him such joy to buy it for us, to have us all around his table.

I took me a few months after my book came out to stop checking GoodReads daily. The kind reviews, those readers that really get the heart of my book and then take the time to write a note about it, make my heart swell. I feel seen and enormously grateful for the way the book’s characters, themes, and complexities are understood. The favorable reviews are a gift—and the dopamine hit of scrolling to find them can be alluring.

But a glimpse at a negative review can occupy my brain for hours. One two-star reviewer said she “needed a nonfiction book” about the topic of POWs in Michigan during World War II and “not a verse historical fiction.” A couple of one-star reviews (now removed after a few protective and no-nonsense readers came to my defense) accused me encouraging young girls to date adult men, based on the fact that they assumed Karl must have been in his 20s, rather than a teenaged soldier. (A reality that was more and more common as WWII raged on and younger and younger boys were pushed from the Hitler Youth onto the warfront. Some sources I read discussed entire German troops consisting of teenagers.)

Last week I was floating in my neighbor’s pool and reading a light-hearted summer romance. My son swimming nearby asked me what I thought of it, and I was a little snooty in my response about the quality of the literature. “Mom!” he chided, “someone worked really hard to write that book!”

I still like to track my books on GoodReads. I like to have record of what I’ve read, what I want to read, the ways the books I consume shape my years. And I still rate most of them—a bit more generously—but I also allow some to go unrated. It doesn’t always seem right to click on a rating scale after reading someone’s personal memoir. And how do I compare a tender and light-hearted middle grade novel to a behemoth, soon-to-be classic family tragedy?

How about you? What is your relationship to rating scales? Do you rate your books, your coffee, your morning writing session? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Always

Last week I had a new essay, about loss, memory, nostalgia, and hope, published on the Reformed Journal. If you missed it, I hope you’ll check it out.

As the calendar inches toward fall…

I am currently booking in-person and online events for September and beyond. I love visiting schools, groups, libraries, or even orchards to share about Enemies in the Orchard, its historical background, and my writing process. I love to do Q&As, and as a former middle school English teacher, I am intentional about keeping my presentations engaging and interactive, and am happy to lead hands-on writing exercises. Click here to learn more— and feel free to pass this link along to others who might be interested.

With gratitude and hopes for a few 5-star moments in your day,

Dana

This month I celebrated a birthday, and while the day held some lovely moments, I experienced a few melancholy ones, too. Time keeps marching on, at times making me feel like I’m chasing it, begging it to slow down or at least allow me to catch my breath.

It’s been years since I first read Shauna Niequist’s book, Bittersweet, but these words have lingered with me: “It's not hard to decide what you want your life to be about. What's hard is figuring out what you're willing to give up in order to do the things you really care about.”

Perhaps one of the most common questions I’ve received since my book was published was how I found time to write it. The answer to that is about moments carved out, but it’s also what I didn’t get done. I am not a stickler about laundry and don’t believe in a whole lot of folding—my kids’ clean clothes are just tossed into baskets. I pay a friend to clean my house every other week. I don’t garden as much as I’d like, and other than The Great British Baking Show, I don’t keep up with TV. And on the topic of seasons, I completed most of the manuscript for Enemies in the Orchard during the pandemic when many vacations and plans were cancelled.

For the same reason, my writing life has been a bit more sporadic lately. In this season of life, I have made other choices. Not good or bad ones, but ones that allow me some peace in my heart.

I don’t mean to oversimplify this. I stress about it. I would love to figure out how to squeeze some extra hours out of my mornings without my alarm going off any earlier than it already does. A new exercise routine, which is good for my health, has gotten in the way of my pre-dawn writing. I love watching my kids’ play sports, but the hours steal time away from time our family could spend pursuing other things — or relaxing and pursuing nothing. And I love my job working as a literacy consultant, but some days wish I had more brain space for creating words of my own.

I often say that one of the things I love most about living in Michigan and working in education are the distinct seasons. The greens of spring fade winter’s cold bite. The turning leaves of fall urge us to let go of our tight grip on summer.

Like nature’s seasons, life has seasons, too. And I’m trying to keep my hands and heart open to receive and embrace them all.

A few other things to share:

1. Part throw-back to my days as a college journalist and part ode to my graduate, in a recent blog on the Reformed Journal I shared with my son (and other graduates) a bit of unsolicited advice.

2. Big thanks to Melissa Taylor for including Enemies in the Orchard in the Middle Grade Reading Road Trip on her Imagination Soup website as one of the featured reads for Michigan. I’m thrilled to be included next to Christopher Paul Curtis’s well-loved Bud Not Buddy and Anna Rose Johnson’s The Star that Always Stays, which takes place on Beaver Island, a place my family has vacationed.

   

3. I met my writing soul mate, Elizabeth Felicetti when we were both MFA students. In the five years we’ve been emailing and checking in with each other daily, she’s fought breast and now lung cancer. In July, she and her friend Samantha Vincent-Alexander will release Irreverent Prayers: Talking to God When You’re Seriously Sick. I have no doubt the book will be a much-needed gift to those struggling with how or what to pray as they endure illness and pain.

   “We struggled a bit with the word ‘irreverent.’ We certainly don’t be unbiblical. We find the prayers in this book solidly biblical. Reverence, however, can be linked to fear. Our parishioners and many Christians are afraid to express their emotions to God. But God took on flesh so that through Jesus God experienced the emotions we feel….We hope that others seeking prayer when ill can reach from this book when other prayers seem to pious and all they want to do is scream, except they can’t because it would hurt too much.”

   -Introduction of Irreverent Prayers: Talking to God When You’re Seriously Sick

Also, my review of Elizabeth’s first book, Unexpected Abundance: The Fruitful Lives of Women without Children, ran in the Reformed Journal on Mother’s Day week. I highly recommend both books!

4. Fellow teacher and baseball mom, Amanda Zieba (the Word Nerd) and I connected via Instagram, and I had fun chatting with her online during an interview as part of her First Friday Read Aloud series. You can listen to Amanda read also the beginning of Enemies in the Orchard, which concludes with our interview on her YouTube Channel.

   

I’m not wishing away summer…

but I am starting to book in-person and online events for fall. I love visiting schools, groups, libraries, or even orchards to share about Enemies in the Orchard, its historical background, and my writing process. I love to do Q&As, and as a former middle school English teacher, I am intentional about keeping my presentations engaging and interactive, and am happy to lead hands-on writing exercises. 

Contact me — dana.vanderlugt@gmail.com — to talk about visiting your students, library, or community. I’d be excited to hear from you.

With gratitude and deep breaths as we navigate life’s seasons,

Dana

I’m from a one-room schoolhouse

I outgrow a little more each day.

From diaries kept hidden under my bed

and tender dreams that bloom like apple blossoms,

soft flowers with the possibility of

becoming fruit

if they can find a place on the branch

with space to grow,

where the sun can reach.

— Claire, “Where I’m From,” p. 2

Enemies in the Orchard is told from two perspectives — and one thing I worked on very hard as a writer was to make sure both Claire and Karl had strong, distinct voices.

But I’ll be honest, Karl’s story often garners a bit more attention Claire’s. Many of the questions I field after events and school visits are centered around Karl and the experience of German POWs in America during WW2. Karl is, after all, the enemy in the orchard. He is the teenage boy who finds himself ripped out of war, and now picking apples in a Michigan orchard. He is the one saved who seems to have been saved by being captured.

But examine a bit closer and you’ll see that Claire often feels trapped, too. She is fighting her own battles—to stay in school, to help maintain an orchard during wartime, to find her voice, to figure out how much grace and forgiveness she’s capable of giving, and to endure the weight of grief.

“The longer I stay

in this schoolhouse,

the longer I live in this town,

the more space

I take up

and the less

I feel I belong.”

-Claire, “Overgrown,” p. 31

Claire’s character, like many aspects of my novel, is inspired by events in my own family history. Star School, a one-room schoolhouse stood on the corner of my grandparent’s orchard and welcomed decades of children. My Uncle Randy went to the schoolhouse for the first few years of his education, and some of the schoolhouse scenes in the book are based on stories he’s told me.

Also inspired by my family story is the pressure Claire is under to quit school because a girl with an education was seen as frivolous in 1944 in her small town. None of my four grandparents finished high school. My paternal grandfather quit school because his help was needed on his family farm after his two brothers were deployed during WW2 and his father died young. My maternal grandfather was not a strong student and was told “he wouldn’t amount to much,” and should just get a job in a factory. Both of my grandmothers were told that they didn’t need any more schooling, as it was assumed their only aspiration would be to have children and run a household.

“ ‘Is Claire really back in school this fall?

What else does she need to know?’

This is not a question

and she does not wait for a response.

“I quit school by her age and so did Danny.

Once this war is over and the boys come home,

she’ll find a nice guy and get married.

Why waste her time

messing with math problems

and reading stories?”

- Josie, Claire’s older sister in, “Sunday Dinner, After Church,” p. 37

When I visit schools to talk about my book, the students look at me like I’m crazy when I suggest that Claire’s parents and community assumed she’d quit school in eighth grade. Usually, a few students even suggest they’re jealous of her option to be done. But I hope when young readers read this book, they can recognize the courage of Claire, the ferocity of her dreams in spite of the expectations set for her.

I also hope they notice a quieter hero in my story: Miss VerWys, the teacher who refuses to give up on Claire or her dreams.

But giving up my dreams,

having to quit school

like every other woman in my family has done,

feels more like a life sentence

than a sacrifice.

- Claire, “Punished,” p. 190

March is Reading Month, and I’m grateful to spend a lot of time in schools this month. March is also Women’s History Month, and I also hope that through this book I’ve given voice to those women, like my grandmothers, who weren’t always expected to have one.

A few other notes:

The Calvin Festival of Faith and Writing returns in-person this spring after a covid hiatus, from April 11-13. I’m excited to be attending and leading a Festival Circle: Teachers Who Write, Writers Who Teach. I’d love to have other educators (any age or stage welcome!) join us for these lunch discussions. The Reformed Journal, where I’m a frequent contributor, will have a table at the Festival, too. I’ll be hanging out there often and would love to meet you. I’ll be signing books — watch for the exact time and additional details to come as the Festival schedule is released.

I’m celebrating some friends with books just released or coming out soon!

Jeff Munroe, my editor at the Reformed Journal, who has now become a good friend recently released Telling Stories in the Dark, the first in what we hope is many books to carry the Reformed Journal Books label. Munroe’s book is a nonfiction collection of stories of those who have dealt with unimaginable grief, and examines what Frederick Buechner calls "the stewardship of pain."

Natalie Dykstra, my mentor and dear friend since I was her undergraduate student, releases Chasing Beauty: The Life of Isabella Stewart Gardner on March 26. Natalie is a gifted biographer and a meticulous writer who takes care of every sentence as she delves into the life of Gardner, a complex and accomplished art collector. This “extraordinary achievement of storytelling and scholarship” is both a work of art and a work of love. It will be a great read for Women’s History Month!

My writing soul mate, Elizabeth, and her friend Samantha will be releasing Irreverent Prayers: Talking to God When You’re Seriously Sick in July, but you can pre-order it now! Both pastors who have been through serious illness, Elizabeth and Samantha share a collection of candid, darkly humorous prayers written by two people of deep faith who have been through deep pain. I’ve gotten a chance to read several of the drafts of the prayers, and I have no doubt they’ll be a welcome gift to those dealing with illness who are tired of trite cliches (even if they are well-meaning.)

Here’s to a March of Reading and celebrating Women’s histories!

With gratitude,

Dana

Jack Ridl was my undergraduate college poetry professor. For more than 20 years now he has continued to mentor me — continually teaching me what it means to be truly WITH people — whether that’s on the page, in the classroom, or in a conversation.

Throughout my childhood, but especially in vulnerable and anxious transitions of my adolescence and early adulthood, I struggled with a stutter. Jack made room for me, for my words and my struggle to get them out, in his classroom in a way I had never before experienced. The respect he cultivated, and the bravery he built in me, is something I will be grateful for forever and ever and ever.

Tonight at Hope College, where Jack first taught me, he and I will sit down to have a public conversation about Enemies in the Orchard, about writing, and about life life. I hope you can join us. To be on stage with Jack, and to share it with others who also care about words and language, means a great deal to me.

Refreshments will be served and books (both Jack’s and mine) will be available for purchase and signing after our talk.

Huge shoutout to the amazing Deb VanDuinen, Hope Education professor and Director of the NEA Big Read Lakeshore, for making this event happen, as well as to the Hope College Education, English, and History departments for co-sponsoring the event.

If you live in the West Michigan area, I hope to see you there!

Dana

Text Sets are a common tool in classrooms used to help students explore a topic of interest. Organized around a theme, historical event, or any high-interest topic, Texts Sets often include a variety of genres and formats — and explore an issue from a variety of perspectives. Think of them like a well-curated display in a bookstore or library.

I gathered a Text Set for Enemies in the Orchard that features some of the books that influenced me and helped me with research as I wrote the book; and others that have drawn me in since. I hope you find a title or two that piques your interest.

We Were Each Other’s Prisoners by Lewis H. Carlson: (nonfiction)

During the Second World War, Germany captured nearly 94,000 American soldiers, while the Allies shipped almost 380,000 Germans to the United States. We Were Each Other's Prisoners compares, for the first time ever, stories of POWs from both sides of the conflict: From the anti-Nazi German soldier who tried desperately to turn himself in rather than fight for Hitler, to the U.S. prisoner who thrice escaped his German captors the last time to join Russian troops in the Battle of Berlin, to the Jewish-American prisoner who was sent to a slave labor camp. Culled from more than 150 interviews with 35 American and German surviving POWs, the book addresses larger political and psychological issues: What does it mean to be a prisoner, especially for men whose cultures prize individual heroism? Why did conditions differ so dramatically in American and German camps? How were these men received upon their return to their homeland?How have they coped with the long-term effects of incarceration?

This book, which contains first-hand accounts of both German and American POWs during World War II, was incredibly helpful as I came to understand the experience of German POWs.

They Called Us Enemy by George Takei (graphic memoir)

George Takei has captured hearts and minds worldwide with his captivating stage presence and outspoken commitment to equal rights. But long before he braved new frontiers in Star Trek, he woke up as a four-year-old boy to find his own birth country at war with his father's -- and their entire family forced from their home into an uncertain future.

In 1942, at the order of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, every person of Japanese descent on the west coast was rounded up and shipped to one of ten "relocation centers," hundreds or thousands of miles from home, where they would be held for years under armed guard.

They Called Us Enemy is Takei's firsthand account of those years behind barbed wire, the joys and terrors of growing up under legalized racism, his mother's hard choices, his father's faith in democracy, and the way those experiences planted the seeds for his astonishing future.

What does it mean to be American? Who gets to decide? When the world is against you, what can one person do? To answer these questions, George Takei joins co-writers Justin Eisinger & Steven Scott and artist Harmony Becker for the journey of a lifetime.

While Claire and Karl’s story examines the experience of German POWs who came to American labor camps and were treated quite well, the story of Japanese Internment Camps tells another story—the story of America’s mistreatment and cruelty toward its own citizens.

Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler’s Shadow by Susan Campbell Bartoletti (youth nonfiction)

In this Newbery Honor and Sibert Honor award-winning book, Susan Campbell Bartoletti explores the riveting and often chilling story of Germany's powerful Hitler Youth groups.

By the time Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in 1933, 3.5 million children belonged to the Hitler Youth. It would become the largest youth group in history. Susan Campbell Bartoletti explores how Hitler gained the loyalty, trust, and passion of so many of Germany's young people. Her research includes telling interviews with surviving Hitler Youth members.

"I begin with the young. We older ones are used up . . . But my magnificent youngsters! Look at these men and boys! What material! With them, I can create a new world." -- Adolf Hitler, Nuremberg 1933

Hugely helpful to my research, Bartoletti’s book introduces young readers to the reality of the Hitler Youth based on extensive interviews with members of the Hitler Youth, as well asHolocaust survivors, resisters, and bystanders.

Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home by Nora Krug (graphic memoir)

Nora Krug was born decades after the fall of the Nazi regime, but the Second World War cast a long shadow over her childhood and youth in the city of Karlsruhe, Germany. Yet she knew little about her own family’s involvement; though all four grandparents lived through the war, they never spoke of it.

After twelve years in the US, Krug realizes that living abroad has only intensified her need to ask the questions she didn’t dare to as a child. Returning to Germany, she visits archives, conducts research, and interviews family members, uncovering in the process the stories of her maternal grandfather, a driving teacher in Karlsruhe during the war, and her father’s brother Franz-Karl, who died as a teenage SS soldier. In this extraordinary quest, “Krug erases the boundaries between comics, scrapbooking, and collage as she endeavors to make sense of 20th-century history, the Holocaust, her German heritage, and her family's place in it all” (The Boston Globe).

I first learned about Krug’s book when a friend passed along her Writers & Co podcast interview. I was fascinated by Krug’s exploration into the “idea of Heimat, the German word for the place that first forms us, where the sensibilities and identity of one generation pass on to the next.” I found this graphic memoir to be an honest and unflinching look at layers of family and war trauma, and a reminder of the questions we sometimes wait to ask until it's too late.

Michigan POW Camps in World War II by Greg Sumner (nonfiction)

At a time of home front labor shortages, they picked fruit in Berrien County, harvested sugar beets in the Thumb, cut pulpwood in the Upper Peninsula and maintained parks and other public spaces in Detroit. The work programs were not flawless and not all of the prisoners were cooperative, but many of the men established enduring friendships with their captors. Author Gregory Sumner tells the story of these detainees and the ordinary Americans who embodied our highest ideals, even amid a global war.

Early in my research, I attended a talk about Michigan POW camps at the Grand Rapids Library given by Greg Sumner, professor at University of Detroit Mercy. Greg’s talk—and the stories of the other attendees—helped propel my research, and Greg has become a friend. I’m grateful for him and his careful research.

The War that Saved my Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

Ten-year-old Ada has never left her one-room apartment. Her mother is too humiliated by Ada's twisted foot to let her outside. So when her little brother Jamie is shipped out of London to escape the war, Ada doesn't waste a minute--she sneaks out to join him.

So begins a new adventure for Ada, and for Susan Smith, the woman who is forced to take the two kids in. As Ada teaches herself to ride a pony, learns to read, and watches for German spies, she begins to trust Susan--and Susan begins to love Ada and Jamie. But in the end, will their bond be enough to hold them together through wartime? Or will Ada and her brother fall back into the cruel hands of their mother?

This middle grade historical fiction novel, based on the evacuation of children from London during World War II, captivated me years ago. I’m grateful for all the historical fiction books written for young readers (and enjoyed by readers of all ages) that both entertain and educate.

Room to Grow and a Letter to my Sons

I was excited to share more about novels in verse on School Library Journal’s blog: Room to Grow: Middle Grade Readers Lead the Expedition into Novels in Verse.

Distilled down to their most essential, these books were the perfect package: engaging stories that held my attention and beautiful language that took my breath away, all while being something easily read in the margins of my life.

While many of my adult readers comment that they’ve never read a novel in verse before, it’s been a popular format for middle grade readers for more than a decade.

I also recently blogged for the Reformed Journal: Letter to My Sons.

In what seems like a flash, you’ve turned from toddlers who begged for “one more story,” into teens and a tween who roll their eyes just a little more at your mom than I’d prefer, especially when I suggest a book you might like. You’ve grown from little boys who used to seek out the next book in the series to middle and high school students who view reading as mainly an assignment. 

Upcoming Events

For those of you in the West Michigan area, I’m excited for this event at Hope College, my alma mater, in February. Jack Ridl, my college poetry teacher, mentor, and friend, will be interviewing me. Read more about Jack on his website.

If you’ve made it this far, thank you for reading!

With gratitude,

Dana

Confession: I couldn’t get into Christmas music this year. Maybe it was the 55 degree temperatures, the lack of snow here in Michigan, or the sad news and images from the Middle East. When I’d try to tune into a Christmas station, much of it felt too trite or simplistic for the season.

And then, on the day after Christmas, I heard the Lumineers’ (one of my all-time favorite music groups) remake of the old Willie Nelson song, “Pretty Paper.” I’m not sure I’ve ever listened closely to the lyrics of this song before, but its sorrowful melody nudged me closer to a feeling of Christmas spirit than “Jingle Bells” or anything Holly Jolly.

Crowded street, busy feet hustle by him.
Downtown shoppers, Christmas is nigh.
There he sits all alone on the sidewalk,
hoping that you won't pass him by.

Should you stop, better not, much too busy.
You're in a hurry, my how time does fly.
In the distance the ringing of laughter,
and in the midst of the laughter he cries.

Pretty paper, pretty ribbons of blue…

There is a certain pressure, especially at the holidays, to shiny everything up. And while we yearn for and appreciate the sweet, joyful moments, there is also the scratchiness, the unsettled feeling that our world is weary and in need of redemption. That what we rush by is actually what deserves more of our attention.

It’s the quieter, less flashy moments that called to me this Christmas: the pining and weary world stanza of “Oh Holy Night,” the liturgies of lament, the reminder that a baby king placed in a feeding trough rather than a golden bassinet in a palace.

This week I reread Small Things Like These, Clare Keegan’s tiny Christmas novella that I think is as close to a perfect, but un-shiny, as possible. If you’ve not yet read the story of Bill Furlong, I recommend you do. A coal merchant in a small Irish town, Bill, the son of an unmarried woman, struggles against the pressure to just look after his own, to accept what little one can do, to look away from the pain that he is told seems to distract him. It’s a story of hope and empathy, and the sadness of how communities can become complicit to the inhumane treatment of others by pretending it is none of our business.

“As they carried along and met more people Furlong did and did not know, he found himself asking was there any point in being alive without helping one another? Was it possible to carry on along through all the years, the decades, through an entire life, without once being brave enough to go against what was there and yet call yourself a Christian, and face yourself in the mirror?”

On this fourth day of Christmas, I do hope your season has included a handful of tiny moments of joy and gladness. But if it held other moments, moments of melancholy or sadness, or that ache to fix what is broken, maybe that’s embracing the Christmas spirit, too.

As I ponder the quieter spirit of the season, I am apt to look back upon this season of Enemies in the Orchard coming into the world. There were plenty of big, shiny moments: I’m over-the-moon grateful for the overflowing bounty of family and friends at launch events, for the enthusiasm of middle school students who have filled auditoriums, and the privilege to share my story to a grand ballroom of Michigan fruit growers (and an Apple, Cherry, and Asparagus Queen.)

But I’m equally grateful for the quieter moments: the personal emails in which people share personal connections to the story, the earnest questions from young readers, the book clubs I’ve attended with questions so thoughtful and smart that they brought new meaning to a story I once thought was finished, but now realize is still being written with each new reader.

I recently read another author’s vulnerable admission on social media that during this end-of-the-year flurry of “Best of,” she was feeling a bit sad that her debut novel wasn’t making the lists.

There is a human tendency to categorize and put things in neat boxes at the end of the year. And as helpful and as well-intentioned these lists are, I keep reminding myself that it’s not the flashy moments that we should hold the tightest. The Goodreads ratings are beyond our control; Amazon rankings fluctuate day to day; there is always a new bestseller on the horizon.

I’ve been making my way, a few pages at time, through Dani Shapiro’s Still Writing: The Perils and Pleasures of the Creative Life. As I’ve mentioned before, beginning a new writing project has required me to Start Small, and Shapiro’s book gives me a kickstart I need to pull out my notebook and return to the page. In a chapter on Envy, a chapter Shapiro admits she really didn’t want to write, she admits the best moment in a book’s publication is the when the first copy arrives because “all is possibility.” Once a book makes its way into the world, Shapiro says, “it feels a bit like watching helplessly from the sidewalk as your toddler navigates Times Square.”

Nearly every book on writing I’ve ever read reminds us that publishing is not the magic bullet. Or as my patron saint Anne Lamott says, "Try to bust yourself gently of the fantasy that publication will heal you, that it will fill the Swiss-cheese-y holes inside of you. It can’t. It won’t. But writing can.”

It’s no accident that the chapter before Envy in Shapiro’s book is Astonishment, and might just be one of my favorites in the book.

“The page—if you spend your life in deep engagement with it—will force you to surrender your skepticism. It will keep you open and undefended. It doesn’t promise comfort. But if you hurl yourself at it, give it everything you’ve got, if you wake up each morning—bruised, bloody, aching—ready to throw yourself at it again, I’ll make you a promise: it will keep you alive to watch you see and taste and touch. To what you feel. And that’s what we want—isn’t it? The page will force you to expand your capacity—as if that capacity were a physical thing, a muscle, a ligament you can stretch and extend with regular use—for astonishment.

(I am also drawn to Shapiro because she might be the only author on earth to love and use the em dash like I do.)

Though Shapiro, when she writes about astonishment, is referring to the process of writing itself, I dare suggest these moments could connect to the publishing process as well. Though it’s easy to be tossed around on the sea of human approval and success, there are tender moments of connection that happen when a book leaves your computer screen and enters the world that aren’t about sales or self-promotion or marketing—but the way words and stories make room for a sense of community in its truest form. These moments are rare and not to be taken lightly, but if we turn away from the allure of best-of-lists and shiny awards, we might just find our capacity for astonishment growing as our story moves from our hands and into the hands of others.

A couple of other links to share:

As I alluded to, today is the fourth day of Christmas, and I have a particular passion about the fact that Christmas is not over on December 26. It will be a bit before I take my Christmas tree and lights down. In that spirit, this week on the Reformed Journal blog I shared Twelve (Relatively Simple) Ways to Celebrate the Twelve Days of Christmas.

One of the best gifts of the season I received was this book review by William Boerman-Cornell, also published in the Reformed Journal. It’s a particularly meaningful thing when a reviewer really gets your book, and I loved that the review began William’s confession that he had all the wrong ideas about my book.

I am especially grateful and humbled by this paragraph:

How can a kids’ book matter in the face of all this?  By reminding us of the truth.  Enemies in the Orchard takes place in a time of division at least as deep as the one we are in now.  Pretty much the entire world was on one side or the other, and the Allies waged a desperate war against Nazism. And, while the ideologies of the two sides were certainly not equally defensible, it was easy for both sides to forget that the people on the other side of the battle line were human beings – sons, brothers, and friends, all fighting for diverse reasons, with their own doubts, fears, and regrets.

Our world is divided, delicate, and hurting, but I—not by might or will, but by the necessity of faith—lean into hope in the new year.

With gratitude,

Dana