Author Jane Kirkpatrick is a clinical social worker who spent years directing a mental health clinic, then more years working on an Indian reservation with families of children with special needs. She says, “When I was old enough to know better, my husband and I moved to 160 acres of rattlesnake and rock in eastern Oregon to try our hand at ‘homesteading.’”
Her writing achievements include winning an award for the Outstanding Western Novel of 1996 (an award won by Barbara Kingslover and James Michener among others); having that same book, A Sweetness to the Soul be named to Oregon’s Literary 100: 1800-2000 identifying the 100 best books published about Oregon in the past 200 years. Other books have received awards such as BookSense 76 National Bestseller Pick and Best Novel of the West from Western Writers of America. Also, Literary Guild, Doubleday, Book of the Month and Crossings Book Club selections.
Jane was named The Distinguished Northwest Writer of 2005 by the largest writers group in the Northwest. She just finished writing her 14th novel, has contracts for five more, and has two non-fiction titles in print. She and her husband Jerry just celebrated their 31st wedding anniversary. And they’re still on that ranch in eastern Oregon.
Nikki: When did you first feel “called” to write and how did that evolve into the writing life?
Jane: I felt called to move to that remote property I mentioned earlier. That took five years of trusting we were actually supposed to quit our jobs, sell our stuff and try to build a house/life/barn/ranch/ at the end of eleven miles of dirt road 25 miles from the nearest little town. We’re seven miles from our mailbox and for the first two years we didn’t have a phone. We drove 10 miles to the nearest shed where a rancher had a barn on a post with the wind blowing through two big open doors and a rattlesnake curled up under old boxes in the corner. Very cold in the winter. Anyway, I sat in our family room before all that and prayed “OK, I’ve agreed to go to this property. But what will I do there? (So that I don’t end up killing my husband, I added only partly in jest). The word “Write” came into my head. It’s was only the second time I actually “felt” a word like that. The first was when I felt the words “go to the land.” So I took two classes at the local community college where we were living before we moved. My instructor turned out to be a Christian man, Bob Welch, a fine writer, and he said I could probably publish some of the assignments he’d given me. So I sent them off. They were all non-fiction. They got published in places like Decision and Daily Guideposts and Sports Afield. Then after we moved and got electricity, I started writing for more magazines and newspapers, some features and inspirational pieces. Eventually I wrote a proposal and sold Homestead (and then wrote it!) Four years later I wrote a proposal for a novel which came out in 1995 and since then there’s been a novel a year almost. I quit my “day job” at the reservation five years ago so after all that time, I’ve only been writing full time for five years. But I was an “older” writer when I began having my first real publication appear when I was 36.
Nikki: How has writing deepened your spiritual journey?
Jane: Oh let me count the ways! First of all, writing for me is somewhat like praying because I have to suspend me and trust. I pray before I begin and ask that I can enter and live that story and that its future won’t direct my path but that God will direct my path. I read a lot of religious/spiritual commentary, devotionals, a lot of non-fiction as I’m researching along with other reference books related to the period or person I’m writing about; but my passion has been telling stories of real people, helping them step from the past into our contemporary world and their spiritual journeys are a huge part of who they were. I believe that they had spiritual struggles too and want to learn from them how they came through, where they drew their strength from. I’ve also had many “bad” days when I had to rely on that word so long ago “write” believing that God spoke those words and that even if I’m not selling millions or making millions either, that my job is to assume the position of a writer; to tell the stories I’ve been given the best way I know how; and to trust that I am not alone in the telling. The Holy Spirit, the divine comforter, Jesus, all the words that we use to capture the essence of the Holy, of God, so we can lean on him, are sitting beside me as I write. I can live with the ambivalence both of the story and of my future because of my faith and that’s how I have to live my life too where I have so little control. Does that make sense to anyone? I hope so!
Nikki: Tell us something most people don’t know about you and would be surprised to learn.
Jane: I am fearful of many things. But I make myself do them. Living where we do so far out is scary sometimes. Driving on a slick, muddy grade that has a 950 drop off is still scary. Intervening in a parking lot where a mom is yelling at her child is scary. I’m fearful that I won’t hear what God is asking me do to and then if I hear it, that I won’t have the courage to do it. Let’s see, I’m also a private pilot. I got my license, flew 100 hours, survived an airplane crash and now I’m afraid to fly. No, I’m afraid to pilot. I still do fly. I figured if I took one of those classes for people afraid to fly and they found out I was a pilot they might do me in! Oh, and I always wanted to be a stand up comic.
Nikki: What is it about your writing style that readers tell you draws them to your books?
Jane: They say they are taken to the place, they are “transported” to another time. The purpose of fiction I think is “to move people” and the best way to do that is through metaphor, a word that actually means “to transform.” So when they say they are transformed, moved, I am grateful that what was meant to be said has come through me to them inside the story. They say they like knowing that my characters are based on real people, that the history is well-researched, that they are discovering their own journeys inside my character’s. One man said reading A Name of Her Own would make him not only a better husband and father but it would make him a better man. A woman who read the Kinship and Courage series said because of it she would worry less about what might happen to her husband (he is in the military) and trust that God is in control; and that she would develop more women friends who could tend and befriend her in a time of need. I can’t tell you how readers have moved me. It is a side of writing I hadn’t imagined and I am grateful for the gifts.
Nikki: Tell us one of the high points of your career and what it meant to you?
Jane: Seeing my book in a bookstore for the first time, face out. Noticing someone reading one of my titles in the airport and walking over and asking if they’d like me to sign it. (No one ever asks for my ID when I do that!). But most of all it was sending out my tithe check for my first novel and writing “award” in the memo line because of something a pastor had said. I was asking God to just show me if I really was still on the right path. And six months later the book received the outstanding Western Novel Award from the Western Heritage Center. That was such a confirmation.
Nikki: If people want to follow your writing journey, where are you on the Internet and what appearances do you have scheduled this year?
Jane: I’ll be lots of places this year, in Wisconsin in September at both the Quilt Show in Madison and at the Lodi library and in Sturgeon Bay as well. In October, it’s Colorado; November it’s Texas and December it’s Washington State and in between Oregon. And I’m doing a blog tour (don’t know the exact sites yet). You can find it when it’s set up on my blog at janekirkpatrick.blogspot.com called Harvest of Starvation Lane. Best would be for you to visit my website jkbooks.com where I have a schedule you can click on and see where I’ll be. I hope you’ll come see me! I also write a monthly memo of encouragement on that website and fill people in on what’s happening on our ranch, too. I also just opened a Shoutlife.com page and contribute to charisconnect.blogspost.com though we’re taking a little summer hiatus right now. Author Margaret Daley has an interview with me on her blog www.marthadaley.blogspot.com and there’s a interview and review of my latest book at www.faithfulreader.com. I also contribute to womenwritingthewest.org and their blog so join us there for people talking about women and stories. I have a book due September 1 so I’d better be doing THAT now. Thanks so much for asking me to visit.
Jane’s latest release: A Tendering in the Storm, Book Two in the Change and Cherish Series (WaterBrook Press/Random House).
Sneak Peek -
Alone with two children and pregnant with a third in the Washington wilderness of the 1850s, Emma Wagner Giesy sets out to do things on her own. But grief has many sisters. Choices made from guilt, anger and separation from God take her places she never imagined. What bring s her back is what can bring us all through wilderness places. Based on a real historical woman and her 1850s religious colony.
A Tendering in the Storm is available in bookstores now.
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About the Author:
Nikki Arana is an award-winning author living in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. She is the recipient of the American Christian Fiction Writers Book of the Year Award for Women’s Fiction, The Beacon Award, nd the Jessie Cameron Alison Writer of the Year Award. |