Interview with New Staff Writer and Author, Yvonne Anderson

We recently invited Yvonne Anderson, author of the space fantasy series “Gateway to Gannah,” to join our team. She’s been a guest with us before, but beginning in February, she’ll be posting spotlights on various authors every Thursday. 

Today, she’s here to introduce herself by way of a self-interview. I’ll now turn the post over to Yvonne and her guest, Yvonne:

Y’s Q. You write that weird speculative fiction stuff. Don’t you think you’re a little out of place here?

Y’s A. You have a point. I’ve known Sandra Moore and Lisa Ludwig for several years, since the three of us are in the same Penwrights writers’ group. But TBB deals mostly with Christian romance, and I don’t usually fit in that crowd. That’s why it surprised me when they invited me to join them. 

The request came at a crazy time. My eighty-six-year-old mother-in-law broke her shoulder in a fall and needed someone to stay with her 24/7. Although she lives an hour and a half away and has other children nearby, they all work for a living, whereas my husband is retired and I work from home. So for a few weeks, he and I stayed with her Monday through Friday and the other kids took over on weekends.

We couldn’t do that for long, though. The two children my daughter and son-in-law were adopting from the Congo were arriving. So hubby’s oldest sister took a couple weeks’ vacation to stay with Mom while he and I went to Virginia to help with the expanding family, which included three young children before the new ones came along. They arrived, safe and healthy, and made the adjustment with far less difficulty than any of us expected.

But we couldn’t stay there for long, either, because our son’s wedding was a week after the kids’ arrival. Soon after the kids came, we had to head for home. It was a great wedding, we love our new daughter-in-law, and I was high for a couple weeks afterward. Even after going back on Mom duty a few days later.

During all this, my first book (The Story in the Stars) was a Carol Award finalist. With everything else going on, I couldn’t go to the ACFW Conference to see the presentation in person, so I had to listen to the awards banquet online. (I didn’t win. Good thing I didn’t move heaven and earth to get there!)

Also over the course of these events, the nice people at the Speculative Faith blog asked if I’d be willing to join their team. And, I believe the very week that request came in, the ladies here at The Borrowed Book asked me the same thing.

It wasn’t a good time to be making decisions, so I told both I’d pray about it and let them know. I felt all along it was a good fit with Spec Faith. But The Borrowed Book? Really? That’s all romance stuff (Editor: we are NOT!)!

As promised, I prayed about it (among many other things). When my husband urged me to accept both spots and the Lord gave no indication otherwise, I agreed. And here I am. Or, will be, beginning in February. In the meantime, I’ve been working behind the scenes lining up guests for the next few months. It’s fun to meet authors I didn’t know before, and I look forward to getting to know more people and their books.

So am I out of place here? No, I don’t think so. Think of me as a conversation piece that doesn’t just sit on a shelf but also serves a function. Kind of like the squirrel nutcracker of my grandmother’s that I used to keep on my kitchen counter until I let my daughter take it home at Christmas. Yeah. A nutcracker. Squirrely. That’s a good analogy. (Editor: Nope. Just a plain nut!)

Y’s Q. Okay. Well. I’ve only asked one question, and you’ve nearly used up the allotted word count. Is there anything you’d like to add in just a sentence or two?

Y’s A. How about this: I’m honored to be a part of such a lovely blog and want to thank Sandra and Lisa for inviting me. I’ll try to embarrass them as little as possible. Fortunately, they’ve got me posting interviews and author spotlights rather than actually writing anything, so we’ll probably be okay. 

Y’s Wrap-Up. That’ll do. Thank you! Speaking for myself and myself, I look forward to working with the lovely ladies at The Borrowed Book.