The very first writers conference I ever attended was the national ACFW conference in 2007. I was pregnant with Rowyn at that conference–and I met another young woman also pregnant (with her first), who was carrying the same red leather briefcase. We struck up a conversation, eventually exchanged emails, and eighteen years later, she’s still my best friend (hi, Stephanie! LOL). In fact, I realized before going that I’ve been a member of this organization for 21 years. Clearly, ahem, I joined at age 7. 😉

I’ve been to quite a few ACFW conferences since that first time, but it’s been a while. In fact, I think the last I attended this conference was twelve years ago, when I first went as an editor representing WhiteFire Publishing. I’ve been to many other conferences in the meantime, including quite a few regional ACFW ones. But this is the first I’ve gotten to go back to this big, wonderful national conference–and yet again, I’m representing WhiteFire. And this time, David came to rep the company too!

I’ll admit that we weren’t off to the best start, when driving from dropping our daughter off at college and then driving from Annapolis to the airport resulted in a cracked windshield (boo!). But from there, things were great. We’d managed to find super-cheap upgrades to first class, which meant free checked bags…which meant I could bring my books for the bookstore in a suitcase. I think that upgrade actually ended up saving us money in book shipping! 

In the airport, I looked over and saw who I was 98% sure was Tamela Hancock Murray, agent in the Steve Laube Agency (Steve is my agent). I was about ready just to call out, “Tamela!” and see if she looked over, but she beat me to it. She came over and said hello, and that was fun! Turns out, another conferee was on the plane too, though I didn’t realize it until the next day, at a meet and greet. She said she saw me on the plane and nearly fan-girled but thought it would be weird, so didn’t. I assured her no fangirling was ever unwelcome, LOL.

We had a friendly, chatty, helpful Uber driver from airport to hotel, and oh my word, y’all, the Peabody! It has live ducks in the fountain, with a duck parade every day from rooftop to lobby, and duck-themed everything. It was so cute! And the hotel is super posh. It was an absolutely delightful stay.

On Thursday, before the official start of the conference, I had a chance to enjoy a leisurely breakfast with the aforementioned agent Steve. I’ve met him before, but not since he’s been my agent, so it was fun to catch up. Then in the afternoon, I got to sit down with two ladies from the Tyndale team. I just learned on Tuesday that my acquisitions editor is leaving (sad!) but that Stephanie, who I met there (she’s head of the fiction line) will be taking me on (happy!). David and I also joined the Tyndale team and the other Tyndale authors at the conference for dinner of Friday night, which was amazing. I also had a chance to hug my previous editor from Bethany House and catch up with her, which was also a joy.

Thursday night was the “Milestones Dinner,” and I got a lovely little pin honoring my 50th book release.  They also do ribbons for your lanyard, and I had the 20+ year member ribbon, as well the “honor roll” ribbon…which I had to ask someone to explain to me, LOL. It’s for being on a bestseller list and/or winning other awards. And pins, too, for my two Carol Award finalist titles this year.

As an editor, I got to meet with quite a few authors who were pitching their books to me, and that is always a delight. I look forward to seeing what might come of those meetings in the weeks and months to come!

For me, though, the most amazing thing was that every time I went anywhere, someone called out my name. Sometimes to say how much they love my books, but ALWAYS to say they’ve been praying for me. Guys…that just makes me teary and smiley and humbled and awed. It was strange, first of all, to be recognized–the last time I’d attended the national conference, I had some friends there, of course, but it was nothing like this.

Saturday evening was the Carol Awards gala. The dinner was scrumptious, and I was all dolled up in a vintage style dress (that I found for $8 on Poshmark!). I had two books that were finalists: The Collector of Burned Books for the Historical Romance category, and The Christmas Book Flood for novella. I will admit that, of the two, I thought Collector had a better chance of winning. But the Historical Romance category went to the super-sweet Christine Hill Suntz, who I’d had the chance to get to know at all the Tyndale dinners and hang-out times, for The Lawyer and the Laundress, and I was thrilled to cheer for her! But then The Christmas Book Flood won for novella! How lovely!

Two of my Patrons & Peers ladies were at the conference, and hanging out with them was just wonderful. We closed the ballroom down chatting after the award ceremony. =) Total delight.

Of course, we had to leave for the airport on Sunday morning at a ghastly 4:15 a.m., which wasn’t the most fun in the world. A young lady from our Mid-Atlantic zone joined us on the Uber ride (she was understandably leery of riding by herself at 4 a.m.), and Tamela was yet again on our flight home, LOL. 

All in all, it was a wonderful experience all round (minus the chipped windshield, but they were able to repair it, it didn’t require replacement! So even that isn’t so bad!), and I can’t wait to go back! I was amazed that it still felt like home, even after so many years away. Because they’re my people–fellow Christian writers, fellow Christian novelists even. What a joy it was to visit with old friends and make new ones…and just to hear straight from people’s mouths how many prayers have been covering people.

David joked that he was less “publisher of WhiteFire” and more “Roseanna’s husband” there, but he said it was amazing to hear how loved I am. The last day, I kept catching him thanking everyone for their support of me (my editor and agent specifically).

I can’t wait to return!

The Peabody Ducks

My Carol Award acceptance speech. The video picks up a couple seconds in–I begin with “I did prepare something to say, then, much like with my outlines, I chucked it out the window…”

Have you ever wondered where we get the idea of the Trinity, of a threefold God, when the word itself is never used in the Bible?

Well, the word may not be, but the concept is all through it. In studying it, though, what left me breathless with epiphany was when I read that the verse “God is love” is where all these triune understandings are rooted.

Love doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Love doesn’t exist in nothingness. Love can’t exist on its own, outside of a few crucial things.

First, someone to do the loving. That is God the Father.

Next, someone to be loved. That is God the Son.

Third, the outpouring of that love between them, the love itself. That is God the Holy Spirit.

This is an incredibly old teaching and way of understanding the Trinity, but it’s one I only encountered a few years ago. It struck me then, and it struck me even more when I came across it again recently.

Because the beauty of this concept is rooted in a truth so deep it goes back to the very beginning. To before the beginning. To what made the beginning. Why, we might ask, did God create us? Why did He speak that Word by which all that is came into being? Why did the Spirit go forth and hover over the waters?

Love.

First, before the world, that love still existed. It existed in God Himself. It is God Himself. He loved, and so the force of that love created something–created everything. He loved, and the world and all that’s in it came into being. He loved, and mankind sprang up. He loved, and all of history unspooled.

That first love–Father, Son, and Spirit–is the eidos, the ultimate form that all creation then harkens back to. We belong in families because our Creator IS a family. And made in His image as we are, we naturally long for that. We need that. We, too, are a dim reflection of that triune love.

We are the lover.
We are the beloved.
We are the physical representation of the love of our parents.

I am, of course, speaking in ideals–the “act of love” is not always done in love, I know that. But it’s meant to be. Which means we are meant to be that manifestation, that outpouring of love.

Just as we are meant to love others with our whole hearts, undefiled.

Just as we are meant to receive love wholly and openly and truly.

We are meant to embody that love here on earth, with our fellow-men. Just as we are meant to return that love to the Lord, as we receive it from Him.

I don’t know about you, but pondering that just leaves me in awe. That all of creation, all of history, all of everything is rooted in that one little word, that one boundless concept, that one thing we all know yet can’t know fully while we’re bound up in these selfish, sinful bodies:

LOVE.

If we spend our lives seeking to give it, to receive it, to embody it…well then, we’re spending our lives seeking to better understand Him.

The first Lover.
The first Beloved.
And the Love itself that pours out into all of creation.

What exactly is an idol? Why are they dangerous?

Over the last couple months, it seems like the subject has come at me from many different directions, several of them including some historical insights that I was grateful to receive. And then, as I wrote A Storm to Still, which is set during the reign of King David but takes place largely in Philistia, I got to explore those lessons and themes in ways I hadn’t done before.

If you look idol up in the dictionary, you get these definitions:

1: an object of extreme devotion
2: a representation or symbol of an object of worship
     broadly : a false god
3: a likeness of something
4: a false conception
5: a form or appearance visible but without substance

But there’s more to it, historically, than that.

You see, part of the ancient practice of creating an idol involved ceremony. It was not just carving a figure. It was saying words meant to attach the god to that figure. (Which means that not every carved figure was an idol–ONLY those that supposedly had the god attached, and hence were worthy of worship.)

In our modern world, where overt idol-worship has gone out of style, we tend to think of it only with those metaphorical, broad definitions. Idols, we’ve all heard pastors and teachers say, are the things we put above God. The things that come between us and God. And there is definitely truth to that

But it wasn’t until I learned about that “attaching” thing that I began to understand something deeper, more fundamental about idols…and how we fall into idol-worship today. Because, you see, one of the biggest differences between God and the gods of the rest of the world, is that He cannot be contained–not by a figure made with human hands…and not by the boxes we try to put Him in.

To us, this might sound like an “of course.” But it is, in fact, HUGE.

It means that, unlike every other god, the Lord is not just the God of one city or place, bound to those lands.

It means that, unlike every other god, the Lord cannot be forced to act in a given way because we say given words.

It means that, unlike every other god, His power is not shackled to an object, and so praying to that object does not do anything.

Now, that is NOT to say that God doesn’t have sacred objects! He was pretty specific about the creation of the arc of the covenant and the tabernacle, down to the most minute detail. They were important. They mattered. But not because He was contained by them or in them–rather, because they are meant to be a reminder of His glory.

This is a crucial difference. Our sacred objects should never make us limit God–they should only ever make us remember how limitless He is.

So how do we actually create idols today? 

Yes, I think they are the things we put before God: money, power, fame, influence, success, even things like our families or people we, ahem, idolize.

But I’ve recently come to understand it’s other things too.

It’s expecting to make God move by doing certain things.

It’s putting God into a box, creating Him in our image.

It’s trying to contain Him.

It’s telling Him how to do His job, or what He does or does not like, or limiting His movement.

How many times in the Gospels did Jesus rebuke the Pharisees with words like “You say…but I say…”? Those strict adherents to the Law would have been indignant if anyone called them idol-worshipers–it was the very thing they made all those rules to prevent! But it is, in fact, what they’d fallen into. Because they worshiped the Law above the Giver of the Law. They worshiped the Words instead of the Heart behind the Words. And in so doing, they tried to bind God to their understanding of God.

I daresay none of us have physical idols in our houses. But have we done the same? Have we tried to limit Him to our own understanding?

In A Storm to Still, my heroine, Shaala, finds herself before an idol-seller’s stall in a Philistine market. She sees all those carved and cast and shaped idols, along with amulet necklaces. She, too, wears a necklace–a silver pendant with the Shema (“Hear, O Israel: the Lord your God, the Lord is One”) inscribed on it. At a glance, her necklace looks exactly like some of those amulets.

But with that key difference: hers is meant to remind her to turn to the Lord. It, in itself, has no power; it can do nothing. She has to do something, to communicate with God–humble herself, call upon Him, remove whatever is between them, ask forgiveness for her sins.

It’s not the words of a prayer that matter–it’s the heart of the one who prays.

It’s not the words in our Bible that save us–it’s the Word who became flesh.

It’s not anything we do or make or say that makes God act–it’s His love for us that made Him condescend to us.

Lord, help us not to limit you. And never stop reminding us of your glory.

With my final book from my first contract with Tyndale turned in, it was time to pitch some new ideas to them…and I’m thrilled to announce that I’ve just signed a contract for three more World War II novels, plus a Christmas novella!

We’re still a long way out from when you all will be seeing these books, of course–the first novel won’t release until July 2028. Even so, I’m too excited not to share. Here’s a bit about the projects as they stand now (keeping in mind that things could well change between now and when they release, LOL.)

Beyond a Thousand Stars

It isn’t often that I’m attached to a title these days. I know too well how often they change to get hung up on them. But this one…this one I love, and my editor loves it too, so hopefully it will stick. 😉

I still remember when this title and the vague idea for a story came to me. We were in the car, driving the kids home from youth group, and Rowyn and David were talking about Rowyn Things–space, quantum physics, the science of the stars. It was dark, and I remember cresting one of the hills on our very winding country road, looking up past the trees, and seeing those stars that they were talking about in such complex terms. Something about that moment just crystallized in my mind.

The beauty of the night sky. All those countless pinpoints of twinkling light–each one a sun, a burning ball of incredible energy. And I thought about those scientists who had decided that looking at them wasn’t enough, who wanted to understand them, to understand the complicated physics that keeps them burning, that shapes our very universe. Men like Einstein and Bohr and Oppenheimer and so many others.

Men whose work would reshape our world, first for a weapon and then for energy production. The words of the title drifted into my head as we made the final turns toward our house. Beyond a Thousand Stars. 

I had no idea what the story would actually be about. Just this fuzzy thought that it could be set in Princeton during WWII, with Einstein as a character (not the main one, just a fun secondary one). I promptly bought half a dozen books on Einstein–his life, his theories, his impact. And then…nothing. Didn’t read them, didn’t develop it any further. I’d run the nutshell idea past my previous editor in a list of a bunch of possible stories I could focus on, and it wasn’t the one she latched onto, so I didn’t pursue it. But it never went away.

So this time, when it was yet again pitching time, I dusted it off. I skimmed through some of that Einstein material, did some research online. Watched Oppenheimer (um…sure, that’s research. Right? LOL). And finally figured out what my story would be. A heroine who works as one of Einstein’s many aides. A hero on the Manhattan Project, one of the scientists in Chicago. And of course, a bit of espionage thrown in…

And then, a bit of what I love to do: ask hard questions as my characters with two very different viewpoints have to truly wrestle with the implications of what this “new physics” could unleash.

Here’s my very rough, very not-final back cover style summary:

            Estelle Hathaway is a rare thing in 1944—a woman with a physics degree. Though her career of choice is out of reach, she’s found contentment as one of Professor Einstein’s many assistants at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, where she can rub elbows with great minds during the day and then go home with her astronomy-professor father in the evening to study the stars. She’s content with her life…until suspicious entries begin appearing in her father’s astronomy logs.

            Andreas Falkner came to America from Vienna with his parents a decade ago, determined to work against the rising evil in Europe. Now a physicist working on a top-secret project in Chicago, he’s out to help unlock the power of the atom before Nazi Germany can do the same. The last thing he needs is a distraction—but when he meets Estelle at a stargazing party when he goes to Princeton to visit his parents, everything changes. Especially when the brilliant young woman begins to notice what could well be signs of espionage hidden in her father’s star-charts and observatory logs.

            As Estelle and Andreas grow closer, mysteries hidden in plain sight and betrayal close to home draw them ever deeper into a web of secrets. With the war reaching its climax, they must decide whether the pursuit of knowledge is worth the cost—and whether love can survive in a world forever changed by the forces they seek to understand.

The Art of Escape

My second idea is one I’d put a pin in while researching for The Spy Keeper of Marseille. I have a research book called The Show Went On about the arts in France during the occupation, and it had a chapter called “L’Americain,” all about an American journalist who arrived in Marseille in the first days of the occupation with a goal of helping artists (which means novelists, playwrights, poets, painters, sculptures, etc.) who were in danger of arrest by the Nazis because of heritage or politics, to escape Europe.

He came with the intention of being there for a month and helping a few hundred artists from a list he had. In reality, he was in France for a year and a half and helped over 3,000 people escape (not all artists). How intriguing is that! And happily, this fellow wrote it all out in an autobiography called Assignment: Rescue. 

Well, naturally I will be fictionalizing plenty, including my romance line, so I’ve changed the name of both him and the heroine (who is a mashup of about half a dozen women who actually helped, LOL), but I think this one will be great fun. My heroine decided to be rather quirky and comedic, but she’ll be off-setting some heavy themes.

Here’s my back cover style idea for this one:

            Victoria “Toria” Davenport came to Paris in 1940 seeking adventure, romance, and stories worthy of her daring grandmother. But when the Nazis take Paris, the artists she’s quickly come to love become fugitives, desperate for a way out of the country. Toria determines to help, even if it means following the refugees to Marseille, where she joins a growing rescue operation run by another American who, quite frankly, needs all the help he can get.

            Journalist Varian Gray was sent by a group of humanitarians in New York to help as many artists escape the Nazis as possible, but he’s the first to admit all he had to recommend him was a month of vacation and a letter from the international YMCA. He doesn’t know the first thing about refugees, but that doesn’t stop him from diving head-first into the work and praying for the best. He’s quickly overwhelmed, and at first he thinks the last thing he needs is a bold American heiress who forges documents, charms guards, and insists on throwing herself into danger at every opportunity—and wearing a bright red dress while she does so. But he can’t argue with results, and Toria Davenport knows how to deliver just that.

            With gangsters as allies, consuls as enemies, and a villa full of Europe’s leading artists waiting for salvation, Toria and Varian are in a desperate race against time that tests their faith and their resolve. But as the noose tightens around Marseille, they find that risking their hearts may be even more dangerous than denying the Nazis.

Some Third Book

Yeah, and, um…there will be a third one. I don’t know yet what it is, LOL. I only prepped two pitches for the team, so I was pleasantly surprised when they came back and said they wanted three. This third one will be developed later. I do have several ideas I loosely put together that we might draw back out, or who knows–maybe something new will strike me before then. 😉

And the novella: The Christmas Pursuit

Of course, this title (much like the others) could well change, but it’s the working one, anyway, for a story I’m quite excited about. I’d first sent my editor an idea for a Scandinavian one, but it was (a) too similar in themes to The Collector of Burned Books and (b) too dark for a Christmas story, so I went back to the drawing board. And thought: Davie.

That is to say, David Culbreth, twin brother of Evie, our heroine in the WWII timeline of Yesterday’s Tides. We see telegrams from him in that book…we hear his voice on the radio in The Collector of Burned Books. And in next year’s book, The Translator’s War, we even get to meet him, when my hero travels to London for debriefing and training. I’ve always known Davie (okay, he totally goes by David as an adult, but I wrote him first as a child, so he’s still Davie to me, LOL) needed a love story of his own. So what could I put together for him?

It honestly only took me about ten minutes to come up with something I absolutely loved. What if the Culbreth family offered their estate as a home for displaced children in Operation Pied Piper? Many grand estates did–and many even set up schools at said estates. So what if the girl Davie had once fancied but never pursued because his friend liked her too was a teacher at his ancestral estate-turned-foster-house? Okay, that sounded like fun. So…what if the kids they took in weren’t just any kids, but were the children of England’s intelligence agents? That would give me the tie-in I need to my existing espionage-rich world.

I didn’t want anything dire. This is a Christmas novella, after all. So I came up with the following, sent it to my editor, and she promptly said yes, that it felt well-rounded and well-balanced with intrigue and Christmas cheer:

Christmas 1944. Herefordshire, England.

            Audrey Price has enjoyed spending the war at Springbourne Hall, teaching the two dozen children the manor took in as part of Operation Pied Piper. She passed many a happy day there herself as a child and knew that working alongside Lady Culbreth, whom she’d once hoped would be her mother-in-law, would be lovely. But when two of her charges vanish a week before Christmas, after receiving a cryptic letter from home, she knows she has to do the thing she’s most dreaded: face down the heir to Springbourne—the man who hand-selected the children who’d be staying at his family home…and who’d made it clear it would never be her home.

            David Culbreth is a second-generation codebreaker and established intelligencer at Bletchley Park. When his parents wanted to open the manor to children being sent from London at the start of the war, he’d thought it a fine idea—and had suggested they take in the children of the agents Bletchley Park had in the field. But when Audrey—the woman he’s always loved…as had his best friend—greets him on his first trip home in years with the news that two of their wards are missing, he knows his brilliant idea has backfired. The father of the children in question is in hospital in London after a harrowing year in occupied France, and it seems their mother’s letter about him convinced her children they needed to set out for London. On foot. A week before Christmas.

            Audrey and David set out after the children in what should be a simple pursuit…but these two brothers aren’t just determined, they’re as clever and resourceful as their special-agent father, and every bit as hard to catch. In a Yuletide adventure through the English countryside, these old friends discover love as they seek to find the missing boys and deliver them home to their parents in time for Christmas.

~*~

And there we have it! My upcoming new stories. =) It will be a few months yet before I begin working on the first of them, but I’m so excited to have them in the queue!

Which one are you most excited for?