Mack and Jodie have no idea how much their lives are going to change when they decide to give up farming. Mack is hospitalized with depression, Jodie finds herself tempted by the affections of another man, and their teenage children begin looking for answers outside the family—Kenzie turns to fundamentalist Christianity, and Taylor starts cavorting with Goths. Told in the unforgettable voices of each family member, this powerful story of family life reveals the stubborn resilience of love and how sometimes the very thing we're looking for has been waiting at home all along.
To see what Vinita is doing currently, you can find her posting regularly on her own blog (http://vinitawright.typepad.com)and on Days of Deepening Friendship: An Online Spiritual Journey (http://deepeningfriendship.loyolapress.com). These days she is editing, blogging, giving workshops and retreats, and working on a new novel (yet to be named and too young and fragile to be exposed to the outside world). She's also on Facebook and Twitter, although "I tweet only sporadically, which probably defeats the purpose entirely--sorry about that, Tweetlings!" She's begun building a book shelf on Shelfari and hopes to connect with like minds through the books people are reading.
Vinita Hampton Wright has been a book editor for nearly two decades, currently senior editor at Loyola Press in Chicago. She leads workshops around the country on the creative-spiritual process--The Soul Tells a Story grew out of this work. Of her full-length novels, Velma Still Cooks in Leeway won a Logos Book-of-the-Year award, and Dwelling Places was selected by Christianity Today as Best Fiction of 2007.
Wright recently published an updated edition of Simple Acts of Moving Forward, and her most recent nonfiction, Days of Deepening Friendship, focuses on the spiritual experience of women. She now leads retreats on this topic (contact her at wright@loyolapress.com).
Vinita loves to cook, walk the city of Chicago, and watch movies. She and photographer/designer Jim Wright have been married 18 years. They share a bungalow on the far South Side with 2 cats and 2 dogs, all of them rescues, all spoiled, and--depending on the day--helpful or not to Vinita's creative process. Vinita is finally learning to garden and now adds homegrown tomatoes, peppers, and herbs to her little feasts.
