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 Congratulations, Kristen, on the publication of your new book, Joy the Jellyfish. Would you care to tell us about it? KC: Joy the Jellyfish is a story of a little jellyfish who lives in the Great Barrier Reef. Because she's almost transparent and too shy to speak, she is unable to make friends. Downhearted, Joy wanders to the cold arctic north where she meets Bella Beluga, a white whale that teaches her the true meaning of friendship. How did the idea for this book come about? KC: One night after Kevy had finished drawing an illustration for some book he was working on at the time, he started telling me how easy it was to make a mouse a chipmunk or some other such animal, because they have the same body. You just make the ears and tails a bit different. That led to him drawing extemporaneously a variety of creatures. One was an adorable little jellyfish. He started talking about this creature, saying, "What if we wrote a story about her, how she's invisible, how she's trying to make friends?" The next day I wrote the story, and he helped a bit with it, but was really busy so just let me go with it. I fine tuned it and started shopping it around because I really liked it and the drawings he did of Joy and the other sea creatures. When you're writing, whom are you writing for? What type of reader do you envision picking up your books? KC: I am mainly a novelist and write for women who are searching for the deep intimacy with Jesus that we all crave. But I enjoy writing for children as well. For my Joy series (the publisher wants a sequel and there are a few online stories floating around), I write to help children. The first story is a lesson in friendship. Joy learns from Bella that a true friend is one who sees from the inside out. I'm writing these for today's children. These are kids who are overscheduled and exhausted. They are sophisticated. So I write in a simple way but about serious things that children face. One story will be about a little seahorse who is frantically racing to and fro and takes a lesson from the happy-go-lucky anemone, who blows aimlessly in the undersea current. Not heavy stories, but things that will help today's children. They're not fluff, mindless kid's stories. Were books a big part of your life growing up? If so, what books influenced you most as a child? KC: Books were my friends. I have so many great memories of books I loved as a kid. One of my all-time favorites was "The Silver Crown" by the Newbery Medal award-winning author of "Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH" (another great book). I remember my fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Felice, reading us a chapter a day and I was mesmerized. I still recall the little girl hurting her ankle while the bad guys chased her through a pine forest. She hid among the pine needles and grasped her hurting ankle. It is such a neat storyˇKmagic and a silver crown and a little girl who is the only one against the bad guys. I have to tell you, this is the most exciting question Iˇ¦ve gotten for an interview yet! I just told Kevin, "This is an interesting question!" The first thing that came to mind when I read this question was My Friend Flicka and The Red Pony. In our back yard, among the woods, was a downed tree that was my horse. The long, log-like branches would bounce up and down while you rode them. I read those books while riding. It is one of my best childhood memories, that horse. I rode it solitarily, for hours, all by myself but not alone because of the books. I've never forgotten two picture books. One was about an Easter bunny and it showed this maze of underground tunnels and all these chicks that hatched from the colorful Easter eggs. The other was about an octopus and all the little babies it had. There were tentacles everywhere. I tried to find those books a few years ago and found the Easter bunny one. It was still as beautiful as I remembered. I would love to find the octopus one. It had so many little babies floating around, with so many tentacles, it was neat. And I actually bought The Silver Crown recently to re-read it. That's how good it was. When you're not writing, what do you enjoy doing? KC: I love to read. I love Christian sci-fi. My favorite thing to do is ride horses, but I haven't had a horse in years. Love hanging out with my guys and doing family stuff. It must have been great to have your husband, Kevin, illustrate Joy the Jellyfish. Did the two of you work on the manuscript, or once it was completed, did you give it to Kevin? KC: Yep, as I said previously, he helped me with it. And it was so neat to see him draw the illustrations. He spent so much time with them, I'm really grateful to him. Can't say enough how thankful I am to him. What would you like your readers to know about you? KC: That I love Jesus, Jarod and Kevin more than anything. That Jesus is King of my life and that I obey my husband. That I try to put Kevin and Jarod first at all times. How do you prepare each day in order to write? KC: I don't. Kevin and I have a bunch of manuscripts that our agent is shopping, about seven or eight, so I'm just hanging out till they go somewhere. I'm spending most of my time now job hunting and taking care of my family. Can you give us a view into a typical day of your writing life? KC: When I was writing my novel, King of Glory, back in Bay Village, Ohio, I worked full time, then wrote at night when Jarod went to bed. Now that I'm married and living in Grand Haven, MI, and we have a surplus of manuscripts, I'm just writing as the need presents itself. I am a feature writer for "The Chronicle of the Horse," the nation's largest equestrian magazine, so one night I literally stayed up all night just to turn an article in asap. But I no longer kill myself for the writing. Finding a full time job is my main priority, so the writing is occasional. I'm re-vamping King of Glory a story in which Jesus walks invisibly with the characters (like in the "Footprints in the Sand" poem), and will do a "Joy" sequel next year, but that's it for now. Do you have any parting words? KC: Only that I write to show people Jesus as much as my skill allows. That is my mission in life. I'm not perfect by any means but my heart is in the right place. And one day when I see Him face to face I will be able to tell Him that I worked to the best of my ability to show people Him. Interview by Catherine Terry |