Get to know a popular Christian fiction author
If you’ve been around this blog long enough, you know I’m a big fan of Katie Ganshert (Wildflowers from Winter, Wishing on Willows). I recently read her latest novel, A Broken Kind of Beautiful, and thoroughly enjoyed it. If you’re a fan of contemporary fiction like Karen Kingsbury or Susan May Warren, definitely give Katie a try. Check out my recent blog post on A Broken Kind of Beautiful.
Katie is a super fun, midwestern girl and I wanted y’all to get to know her a bit more. She’s popping by today to share some tidbits that even her biggest fan might not know. I gotta tell you, when I read the list it made me like her even more!
Welcome, Katie!
Once upon a time, authors had an air of mystery about them. I mean, what did they do all day? Were they regular people—like you and me? Thanks to the age of social media, authors are no longer cloaked in such mystery.
I’m pretty open on my Author Facebook Page, Twitter, and my blog. You wouldn’t have to look too hard to learn the gist about me—wife to Ryan, mother to Brogan. We have been in the process of adopting our Congolese cutie for two years now. We have a black lab named Bubba. Live in the Midwest. I used to be a 5th grade teacher. And oh yeah, I write books.
But perhaps there are some things you don’t know about me. So for the sake of lifting that mysterious author veil even higher, here they are. Ten random facts you may not know…
1. I went through a slight obsession with hermit crabs (I know, gross). When I taught 5th grade, I decided to purchase three of these creepy crustaceans for a class pet. We named them Snap, Crackle, and Pop. I may have spent an exorbitant amount of time and money on their upkeep.
2. I write such sloppy first drafts that my husband has very strict orders that should I die suddenly, he is to delete all of them from my computer so nobody will know that I am a truly awful writer. It’s all about the re-writing, folks!
3. I’ve had a long-standing love affair with green olives. There’s this picture of little-kid me unwrapping a jar of them on Christmas morning. Judging by the expression on my face, you’d think I just uncovered a golden ticket to Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory.
4. I have a scar above my lip that is the result of a nasty encounter between a golf ball and my face. It resulted in forty stitches, a wired jaw, lots of root canals, and a strong dislike for the sport.
5. I almost got attacked by a hippo. I so wish I were joking. I was on a safari in the Serengeti. All day we had seen lions and cheetahs and hyenas—eating things. So imagine my surprise when we reached the river and the guide told us to get out. Um, really? The river was crawling in hippos. When we got too close, one may have charged, and I may have run faster than I have ever in my entire life.
6. Speaking of Africa, the very first novel I wrote (which will remain safely tucked away in a drawer marked unpublished) was inspired by the HIV/AIDS outreach work I did while in Nairobi in my early twenties.
7. In seventh grade I watched Shark Week on the Discovery Channel and decided I wanted to be a marine biologist when I grew up. It was a short-lived aspiration, albeit a passionate one.
8. I think Hadassah from the Mark of the Lion trilogy is hands-down the best literary character of all time. Thank you, Francine Rivers, for such a riveting series.
9. During allergy season, I will occasionally make a very odd noise in my sleep. If I had to describe it, I’d say it’s a strange mixture between an angry pig and a bull frog in distress. It’s all in the name of scratching my itchy throat. I’m not the only one either. The vast majority of my mom’s side of the family makes the sound too.
10. My husband and I met when I was working as a receptionist for a real estate firm in Madison, Wisconsin. He was the cute delivery guy. One day he asked me out, I said yes, and for the first year of our relationship, my friends referred to him as the UPS guy, even though the delivery company he worked for was not UPS.
Fashion is a fickle industry, a frightening fact for twenty-four year old model Ivy Clark. Ten years in and she’s learned a sacred truth–appearance is everything. Nobody cares about her broken past as long as she looks beautiful for the camera. This is the only life Ivy knows–so when it starts to unravel, she’ll do anything to hold on. Even if that means moving to the quaint island town of Greenbrier, South Carolina, to be the new face of her stepmother’s bridal wear line–an irony too rich for words, since Ivy is far from the pure bride in white.
If only her tenuous future didn’t rest in the hands of Davis Knight, her mysterious new photographer. Not only did he walk away from the kind of success Ivy longs for to work maintenance at a local church, he treats her differently than any man ever has. Somehow, Davis sees through the facade she works so hard to maintain. He, along with a cast of other characters, challenges everything Ivy has come to believe about beauty and worth. Is it possible that God sees her–a woman stained and broken by the world–yet wants her still?
