Fabulous Friday Feature: Jane Kirkpatrick

Today I welcome an author who crafts unforgettable stories: 

Jane Kirkpatrick

Enter to win 
Jane's book, 
Homestead

Scroll to the end of the post to see how to enter.

Some of us receive the call to serve God in the most unusual places. Jane followed God's call to write, but wait until you hear the details!  I asked Jane to share with us how God has led her on her writing journey. Here is what she said:

God Lead Me

In 1979, my husband and I purchased 160 acres along a wild and scenic river in a remote part of Oregon. The land boasted 12 foot tall sage brush, a reptilian road that dropped 950 feet down a steep grade along a dirt one lane road with no guardrail,  rattlesnakes and the promise of a spring. I never thought we’d live there – just camp and hunt and fish – because it was so distant from the nearest town 25 miles away. (Our mail box was seven miles away). The property had no power to it, no water and no structures.

Three years went by. Then, following a women’s retreat, I felt compelled to go to his land as my husband had been hoping to move to! He’d always said he wanted to go badly enough for both of us, but I knew if I went without knowing why I  was going that when things got rough – I knew they’d get rough – I wouldn’t like the me that I would become. I'd blame him for our troubles. The retreat helped me see that I was being called to the land just as he was.

But what to do there?  One evening while I was working through the Navigator series about Finding God’s Purpose in your Life, this little word came to me: Write.

Hmmm, write, I thought. I’d written wretched little poems as a child and my teachers had complimented me through the years on my writing ability but all the writing I’d been doing as the director of a mental health program for several years was writing to state officials and legislators. It’s true they did call me back when they got one of my letters so I knew that words had power to influence people but I couldn’t image what sort of writing I’d do while we were living at the bottom of a deep canyon. But I listened and enrolled at a community college creative writing class.

I kept my head down sure that the instructor and other students would see quickly that I didn’t belong there, that they had a fraud among them. I couldn’t even read my own work out loud I was so embarrassed. But God is good, all the time and the instructor it turns out was/is a man of faith and he wrote on one of my assignments “I don’t know why you’re frightened. You have a gift.” Later he told me he thought I could likely publish some of my assignments and I did, before we moved to the ranch which was great confirmation of my writing journey.

I now teach classes with the wonderful writer Bob Welch and we’ve maintained a writing/family relationship through the years. Turns out, that was his first teaching class. He’s since gone on to win writing awards and publish many titles. I went on to write a memoir of our life along that river called Homestead, my first published book that has just been re-issued by Whitaker House (It might be of interest to you that C-Span was just here in March of 2014 Bend City Tour.  We did an interview and the segment that aired nationally is now available here. I also wrote 25 other books, many of them earning lovely awards, most based on the lives of actual historical women.

Earlier this year I self-published A Simple Gift of Comfort (non-fiction). When you don't know what to say, this book may say it for you. The prose pieces are drawn from reaching out to friends and acquaintances, neighbors and relatives in the course of everyday life. Sometimes I may not know what turmoil troubles a friend, colleague or neighbor; I only know I wish to share their burden. I can do it best by telling them that someone has noticed their distress and offer to walk beside them for as long as they'll allow.

My latest release is part of a novella collection called Sincerely Yours with authors Amanda Cabot, Laurie Alice Eakes and Ann Shorey. My title is “A Saving Grace” which involves a young music teacher who travels to a remote site (as I did!) in order to help release a friend from an unusual hospital in the wilderness of the Northwest. It has suspense, some insights about ways that grief can overwhelm us and it has a bit of romance. All three of those features occur in wilderness places, too, but I have confidence in God’s presence in all those places of the heart… and hearth.

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Jane is an award-winning and best-selling author whose fictional works based primarily on the lives of real people or events are meant to bring inspiration and to transform. Wisconsin native; graduate of University of Wisconsin-Madison (BA) and University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (MSSW). Author of more than twenty books including mainly being fiction novels & novellas, as well as 5 non-fiction titles.

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Joining her husband in the fight to create a home out of a rugged stretch of sagebrush, rattlesnakes, and sand in Eastern Oregon, Jane Kirkpatrick uneasily relinquishes the security of a professional career; the convenience of electricity, running water, and a phone line; and, perhaps most daunting, the pleasures of sporting a professional manicure. But the pull of the land is irresistible, and the couple dreams of gathering their first harvest from a yet-to-be-planted vineyard. Rather than the simple life they had envisioned, Jane and Jerry find themselves confronting flood and fire, government bureaucracies, and runaway calves, among other disheartening setbacks. Jane frequently questions the sanity of pioneering in this remote area, known as Starvation Point, and she fights against panic with each trip they make down the seven-mile, boulder-strewn, rut-carved "driveway" she calls "the reptile road," which threatens to spill them into the ravine with every lurch of the truck. But as she learns to navigate her new life, this novice rancher discovers that disappointment, isolation, and danger can't compete with the generosity of their rural community, the strength of family bonds, and the faithfulness of the God who planted in their hearts the dream of carving a refuge out of an inhospitable land.

Jane's April 2014 release Sincerely Yours

In this collection of brand-new historical novellas from four outstanding storytellers, four young women find their lives altered after each receives a letter that sets her on a new path toward a changed life--and perhaps lifelong love. From a Hudson River steamboat to a lush drawing room, from a carousel carver's workshop to a remote and controversial hospital, readers will love being swept into the lives of four young women who are making their way in the world and finding love where they least expect it.

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To enter the contest for an autographed copy of 

Jane Kirkpatrick's book: "Homestead":

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Winner announced on my facebook page.

Thank you, Jane, for Joining us This Weekend!

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Jane had to be taken to a quiet place before God called her to write stories.  We are called to do many different things during our life. It usually depends on the the moment. Sometimes we are stay at home moms, sometimes working to put hubby through college, sometimes teaching Sunday School.

Did God ever put you in an unexpected place to reveal a job He wanted you to do?