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By: April Gardner
Christine is such a blast! Carefree and vivacious, Christine kept me laughing for three hours over coffee turned cold. Who would have thought that the author of such deep, tragedy-filled books was so much fun? I’d like to invite you to grab your own tall peppermint mocha and join Christine and me for a chat in happenin’ downtown Nashville, Tennessee where musicians abound, artists inspire, and author Christine Schaub pursues the muse delighting us with her writing genius. April: I noticed you were on the cover of ONEvoice! magazine. Tell us a little of how that came about. Christine: ONEvoice! is actually a Church of God (Anderson) magazine. I went to Anderson College—when it was “college” and not “university”—so I did my first book signing for The Longing Season right there on campus, which was so cool! It was camp meeting, and tons of people were there, except they don’t call it camp meeting anymore because that’s too 1960s. So, I noticed ONEvoice! magazine had a booth there, dragged my mother over, we did our “schtick,” and they said “We have got to have you in the magazine.” Shortly after that, I got a call from a ONEvoice! writer. We spent an hour on the phone, having a blast, and I thought, “Well, this will be a good article.” The next thing I know, I get an email from her saying they’d like to send a photographer over, and I thought, “I guess they didn’t like my press photo.” Well, the photographer shows up with the managing editor and I’m like, “These people are serious about their photos.” And somewhere in the midst of setting up the shoot in my house, I overhear the photographer saying, “So, do you have an idea for the cover shot?” I said, “I’m on the cover? Shut. Up!” It just came out of nowhere, this whole development. The story is lovely. It’s kind of a biographical sketch, growing up on the farm and becoming a writer and how I always thought I’d be a concert pianist instead. April: Have you actually been a career concert pianist? Christine: Well, I actually dropped that my senior year in college. I really upset my teacher because I was the only student playing Rachmaninoff. I had double majored with journalism and piano. I completed the journalism degree and went into writing. April: Which one do you enjoy most? Playing or writing? Christine: You know, for personal enjoyment, I like to sit down and play the piano for a couple of hours. But playing in front of a crowd is stressful. I can’t make mistakes, I have to have the whole set mapped out, and it’s hard to sit with that kind of posture for three hours, not repeating songs. But getting out and talking about the novels is a lot of fun for me. April: What’s your favorite hymn? Christine: Probably “Pass Me Not” by Fanny Crosby. The melody, of course, is beautiful, but there’s something about the words, “While on others though art calling, do not pass me by.” It’s the heart cry of, “Look, I know you’re working on other people’s lives, but don’t forget me! Remember me!” It pains me that we don’t sing that hymn much anymore. April: Hymns are kind of getting forgotten in general. Christine: But they’re having a rebirth. Artists like Jars of Clay and Avalon and Amy Grant put out recent hymn-themed albums. They’re jazzing it up a bit, which is okay. All hymns began as poetry that someone, sometimes decades later, sets to music. Some of the popular praise and worship songs being written now don’t have the same depth of the hymns. I call it the “seven-eleven syndrome”—the same seven words eleven times. (laughs) April: What is it about hymns you love the most? Christine: I think it’s the heart cry of hymns. I like to say that when we’re children and we sing hymns, we’re really just understanding the melody. When we become adults, the words start having deep meaning for us. And sometimes they’re complicated words—“thither and whither”…very Jane Austen. When I was a child, I wondered why we kept singing about a “bomb” in Gilead. (hearty laugh) NOTE: “There is a balm in Gilead…” April: What is the determining factor in which hymns you choose to write about? Christine: The hymn has to have drama—a great story behind it. Even better if it’s a tragedy, because then we remember what shaped the poem. I get so many letters from readers that say, “I will never sing this hymn again without remembering the story behind it.” That’s my goal. I want people to know why these hymns are iconic in our culture. There’s a reason these hymns still speak to us. April: How many more do you plan on writing? Christine: Good question. It’s an evergreen series, so I could write one a year for the next 20 years and never run out of stories. But they are very expensive to write because of all the research. That’s a problem. Hearing from my readers is one of my biggest pushes to write another one. April: Tell us a little about book three to get us interested. Christine: Book three takes place in 1860s Scotland, which is a really cool, industrial time. It’s set in Glasgow, a major sea port. So again, another ship theme! George Matheson is a very interesting character in that he had everything going for him, but one thing—a physical thing. He’s brilliant and from a wealthy family…he’s the star of the show, the golden child. And then it all collapses around him and he has to make a choice that will either define or destroy him. From this experience, Matheson wrote the poem that became the beloved and haunting Scottish hymn, O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go. April: Have you always wanted to write a novel? Christine: No, never! My dream is to be a screenwriter. I’ve always had a love affair with the movies. This hymn project started out with me shopping the stories as teleplays—TV movies. In the midst of that pitch, I was told I needed to turn the stories into novels first and develop a reader base. I snubbed that idea until my agent turned on me and said, “You are a writer. Your assignment is a novel. Write it!” I tried to explain I was a short-story writer, at best. He hissed, “A novel is just 30 short stories about the same people! Can you write 30 short stories?” I thought, “Maybe…” So I very reluctantly became a novelist. April: Do you have aspirations to see the novels turned into movies? Christine: Absolutely! That’s still my goal. I’ve actually had some contact with a producer for turning Finding Anna into a theatrical-release film. So the project is coming full circle. April: What has been the hardest part about writing this series? Christine: Novel writing is a very solitary career, and I’m a very social person. It’s why I teach piano. The piano is my major source of income, as well as my social time. To write a novel, I have to be alone and quiet with my computer and research. There are days when I’m writing and lonely and thinking, “Why am I doing this?” April: Which character of your book do you feel is your greatest creation? Christine: He was not my creation, but D.L. Moody (in Finding Anna) is a wonderful character. You can’t make up a character like Moody. He was larger than life, a man’s man, a throw-it-all-out-there kind of man. His goal was to bring people to Christ. Period. Now, he hurt a lot of people along the way. The evangelist life was hard for his wife. But he was so “what you see is what you get,” and he had a heart for troubled young men. I researched and wrote, and somewhere along the line—just like thousands of others—I fell in love with D.L. Moody. On the other hand, I had to pretty much invent Mary Catlett—the female protagonist—for The Longing Season. There was very little information about her. She was kind of fun to write, because she’s really me—adventurous, a little bit daring, charming, loved her family. It was challenging, but fun. April: Do you have any other series or projects in mind? Christine: I do! I’m currently pitching an action/adventure/comedy series, kind of a “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider” mixed with Bridget Jones—a get-inside-your head, first-person type of book. It would be totally different from what I’m doing now. April: Is there anything you’d like to add that maybe I haven’t touched on, something you’d like the readers to know? Christine: Yes—authors love to hear from their readers. And I don’t mind if it’s a challenging question. I love emails! It’s validating! 
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