My name is Therese. Five days ago, I published my young adult Christian novel, The Quiet Edge of Memory, which is a love story of two loners who look beyond their differences to help each other sort through past trauma and find healing. I've been throwing myself into marketing as I continue to get comfortable in my author skin.
During my early college days, I had a private LiveJournal account. I've hung around Blogger occasionally, and now that I'm published, I thought it was time to give myself a space to document the writing life and share my enthusiasm for books and creative journaling.
As I wrote my novel and walked the self-publishing path, I realized my story was hard to place. I did not write a clean Christian novel. It's not Amish, historical, or thriller and suspense, It's about two college students, Martha and Ian, who have baggage. Martha is snarky and defensive to protect herself after she suffered from religious abuse. Ian is carrying pain from his adoption, even though he came to the States from Korea as a baby and has a very supportive father. My characters make mistakes as they try to sort out their futures. They struggle with boundaries in dating. They slip and use some foul language. But they believe in the gospel and let God move in their lives in extraordinary ways.
I enjoy stories that are outside the trends, break down barriers, and challenge literary norms. When I wrote my first creative non-fiction essay in college about my love for the Russian language, my composition professor encouraged me to take risks with my writing. I did and I never stopped. I love to play with language, formatting, POVs, and ambiguity. Just to warn you, I. Love. Ambiguity. I love it because you can never stop talking about a story that has multiple interpretations.
To give you an idea of the kinds of books I read, some of the titles I’ve recently enjoyed are The Girl Who Never Read Noam Chomsky (Jana Casale), The Place Between Breaths (An Na), and Lolita (Vladimir Nabokov).
And I'd love to feature book reviews starting next month. I'll read anything from Christian fiction, romance, poetry, memoirs, and general fiction. I'm especially interested in literary fiction and books that cover adoption issues. So stayed tuned; your book might show up here!
I hope you have a Happy Thanksgiving!
