Like I soon will be, Carla is the mother of four children – though hers are more than a decade older than mine, which probably explains why she has time and energy to run an organization, speak at conferences around the country and across the globe, keep up with her weekly e-votional, and write a book to boot.

Or maybe that doesn’t really explain anything. Maybe that’s just me making excuses. At any rate, I’d rather let Carla speak for herself – as no doubt, would you.

KCI: So, Carla, please tell us: how do you manage to balance mothering, writing, and speaking?

CM: Before I ever moved into ministry my husband and I prayed. I knew it was vital that I receive God’s blessing. Once this confirmation came I talked with my children. I remember when Carly, our youngest, was 12, I asked if she minded if I was away from home to speak at conferences and retreats. Her reply imprinted a mark on my heart as she said, “Mama, you have to do this because this is what God has made you to be!”

One of the challenges, as well as temptations, is to reverse the order and allow the ministry to become the focus. For me the Lord has to be first and foremost… my husband next… then my children… then ministry. Now that Carly is 16 she comes to most of my events and helps out. It is so much fun! Basically, it is important to follow behind Jesus in ministry and not try to jump ahead of Him. When this is the pattern, the whole family is affected in a powerful way!

KCI: In the Week One introduction, you briefly mention your struggle with depression. As someone who’s lived with depression, I wanted you to say more about this.

CM: Depression. I never thought it could be me. No one else would have thought it either. On the outside, I appeared as the perfect Christian wife and mom. I wore that mask well. No one, not even my husband, knew that behind this veil was a woman gasping for breath to live.

KCI: What triggered your depression?

CM: Order. Organization. Control! The perfect receipt for depression. From the time I can remember, I liked things or my life to be in order. Organization was my middle name. After a few years of marriage and four children the “Out of Control Syndrome” invaded my life.

KCI: How long did it take you to realize what the problem was? What (if anything) was the catalyst for this realization?

CM: Honestly, it was a slow process. When it all came to the surface I was about 35 years old. But, to be honest, the depression had been building up in me over time.

The night before reality hit I couldn’t pray anything but the words, “God, help!” Nothing else would emerge from my lips. At that moment the process of healing began. My yearly visit to the doctor was the next day. After fainting in the examining room, the nurse and doctor said, “We’re going to help you.” Come to find out my adrenal gland was totally shut off which triggered a major hormone imbalance. Physically, I began the road to recovery. Mentally, God began to redirect my pattern of thinking and habits. Spiritually, I realized I am not in control of anything. At that point, my walk with Christ took a different turn. Even now as I type these words tears well up in my eyes as I think of how God’s grace and mercy poured out on me through the words “God, help!”

KCI: How supportive was your family and your community as you walked the road to healing?

CM: God used all of them in my life. My children were too young to grasp what was happening. But my husband carried me through the healing with his prayers, love and support. My parents prayed night and day. Friends brought food, took my children for the day, prayed with me, listened, and more.

KCI: What prompted you to write this study?

CM: After speaking at retreats, events and conference for five years I began to notice a question asked repeatedly: “Carla, how do I learn to see God in my daily life? You share your everyday experiences with us and continually find a spiritual application in it. How do I learn to see things like this?” The birth of this Bible study came from the heart of this question. God is at work around us 24/7. But, sometimes we are so busy with our own agendas we don’t recognize His life lessons.

KCI: What was the most difficult part of writing this study?

CM: The writing and rewriting, editing and rereading process! There were times I thought, “There is no way I can do this again.”

KCI: What was the most fun part?

I absolutely love watching how God puzzles people together to accomplish His purposes! If you have time please read my newest blog entry called “Heart Puzzles.”

KCI: I read Carla’s post, and I agree: all the serendipities and “coincidences” she recounts are really fun.

Carla’s book, Reflecting Him: Living for Jesus and Loving It is a ten-week women’s Bible study. Like Jesus’ parables, which teach by creating visual pictures for the reader, Reflecting Him uses familiar objects and situations (such as our five sense, the rooms of a house, even driving) and draws comparisons to help women become aware of Jesus in their daily lives.

You can read the first two chapters (or weeks) online.

Or you can leave a comment and if Jack-the-random-number-generator picks your comment number, I’ll send you a free copy of the study.

But you want to know what I’m most in awe of? His acknowledgments page. It reads like a who’s who of Christian writers: Robert Clark, John Wilson, Luci Shaw, Walter Wangerin, Jr., Eugene Peterson, Gina Oschner, among others. And he calls Sara Zarr, one of my favorite YA novelists, his “sister.” Anyone else turning green?

So, with all these awesome connections, what’s he doing moonlighting on yours truly’s blog? Well, dear readers, I asked him to.

Okay, so it’s a little more complicated than that. One of his editors, who has become a good acquaintance of mine over the past nine months, offered to put me in touch with him. Jeffrey lives near Seattle, so back in December I emailed him and asked if he’d meet me for coffee. He very kindly said yes. And when his new book came out last month I asked him if he’d do a blog interview with me. Again, he very kindly said yes.

So, clearly, in addition to being a great writer, he’s also a really nice guy. But enough from me. Let’s hear from him.

KCI: The focus of the first book in the series, Auralia’s Colors, is on the colorless kingdom of Abascar. Where did the idea for this drab country come from?

JO: Blame it on Montana. Anne and I were hiking near Flathead Lake, during the summer of 1996. We were talking about our mutual love of fairy tales. Anne asked, “Why is it that so many people reach an age when they’re finished with make-believe? It seems like most people just stop being creative and imaginative. They fold up their imaginations and put them in a closet.”

That triggered a “What if?” moment for me. What if a whole society folded up their colorful and creative work and put it away? I imagined a colorless city set in the middle of this beautiful landscape.

A few moments later, I was imagining a character—a young artist—who would come out of the forest and bring a gift of forbidden color to that place. That character became Auralia.

KCI: In the second book, Cyndere’s Midnight, you turn your attention more toward the fallen kingdom of the Cent Regus. What inspired your vision of the beastmen?

JO: When I wrote Auralia’s Colors, I became curious about the beastly creatures lurking in the forest where she lived. I wanted to know where these monsters came from.

Ever since I was old enough to read Where the Wild Things Are or fairy tales like “Beauty and the Beast,” I’ve been interested in monsters. As a kid, I loved the movie Gremlins. But I was quite interested in the idea of a monster with a soul. Like Gollum, Darth Vader, or the Replicants in Blade Runner.

Perhaps that comes from reading Bible stories about monstrous men who are considered “heroes of faith.” Re-reading the Old Testament lately, I’ve been amazed at the depravity—the violence, the sexual misbehavior, the dishonesty—of the men I used to admire in my Sunday school lessons. There are important matters to discuss and explore when we realize that God is in the business of guiding and working through monsters like them… and like me.

KCI: Throughout both books, color—and thus beauty—is central to the ongoing transformation of individuals and, sometimes, whole groups of people. Why is this?

JO: I believe that our minds are like musical instruments all out of tune, or glass that’s blurry. When we encounter beauty—either in nature or in art—our minds are “tuned” again, to some extent. Things are out of balance there, and we don’t even realize it, but art helps repair that damage. It polishes our lenses, so to speak. That’s why a walk along Richmond Beach near my house, or listening to good music, can raise my spirits after a difficult day at work. Poetry sharpens my senses and my intellect.

I’ve read so many fantasy stories that were primarily about religion or political oppression or sex. I’d never read a fantasy series that was about the revelatory and dangerous power of art before, and the idea inspired me.

KCI: Would you give my blog readers a little teaser trailer for Raven’s Ladder?

JO: Wow. I’ve never been asked to do this before. Sounds like fun.

Okay, first…

Imagine whatever studio logo you’d like, and then the music starts.

Arrows! Someone is hunting Cal-raven, the new king of the survivors of House Abascar, through the caves where they have endured a hard winter. He and his hunting dog, Hagah, run for their lives. Then, he’s outside looking for a place to hide among the wild brambles. It’s midnight.

Suddenly, two enormous spider-like creatures appear on either side of him, and they pounce!

Bring up the title credit: Raven’s Ladder!

We see Cal-raven, tied up and bloodied in the back of a wagon, being hauled away by mercenaries.

We descend into the earth, where we join some of the Abascar survivors who are laboring as slaves to the beastmen. The ale boy has found them there, and he’s trying to revive their hopes by telling them the story of Auralia’s colors. To demonstrate her revelation, he lights himself on fire and the cave fills with light.

We fly to House Bel Amica, a city built on a rock above the ocean. We see Cal-raven climbing out the window of his room in a moonlit Bel Amican tower at night. He steps onto the top of a ladder the he finds there, and then he pushes off, riding the top of the ladder across the avenue far below… until he crashes against the wall of another tower. There, he takes hold of the stones and begins to climb toward somebody’s window.

We see Cyndere, daughter of the queen of House Bel Amica, standing very close to Cal-raven in an empty outdoor marketplace at night, far above the stormy waters of the Rushtide Inlet. It looks like it may be a romantic moment.

Then, in a rush of images:

The Keeper spreads its wings and descends into an abyss, fire flowing from its jaws.

Cal-raven sealing himself inside the hollow of a stone statue sculpted to look like his father.

A parade of glowing phantoms—Northchildren—sneaking through the forest.

One of the devious Seers plants the Queen of Bel Amica’s face in a pan of bubbling lotion, and then pulls her out. The potion has made her seem younger than her own daughter! (Cut to a shot of Cyndere looking disgusted with her mother.)

We see Jordam the beastman charging alone against a troop of spear-wielding beastmen in red armor.

We see Cal-raven, surrounded by noisy ravens, climbing up the incline of a leaning tree. The camera pulls back to reveal that the tree is so massive, Cal-raven’s as small as an ant climbing up its bark.

We see a massive, serpentine tentacle come up out of the water of a harbor and smash in the hull of a ship. Then we see the ship leaning, burning, sinking.

Finally, we see Cal-raven standing on a high place and looking northward through a large, round, blurry pane of glass, and suddenly the swirling light of Auralia’s colors flowers into the air all around him.

And then we see a young girl holding two glass discs up to her eyes, which enlarge them to cartoonish proportions, and she laughs mischievously.

Boom! The title Raven’s Ladder appears.

And then a message appears: “Visit LookingCloser.org for more details.”

How’s that?

KCI: Awesome. Now we just need some cinematic music with an ever-increasing drumbeat, ending with a cymbal crash.

Your writing is lyrical and lush, and you weave together many different story strands in each novel. What writers do you read to keep your own well of creativity full?

JO: In the last couple of years, I’ve been so busy working at the day-job and writing in the evenings, I’ve had very little time to read.

I do, however, find Patricia McKillip to be a very inspiring fantasy writer. Her novels The Book of Atrix Wolfe and Alphabet of Thorn are some of the best fantasy books I’ve read in the last 20 years. I also love the style of Guy Gavriel Kay’s complicated fantasy novels, which are a lot like historical tapestries. Mervyn Peake should be as famous as any fantasy author; his Gormenghast stories are pure joy to read, especially to read aloud.

But mostly I’m inspired by non-fiction. I think the nonfiction written by Annie Dillard, Madeleine L’Engle, Eugene Peterson, Philip Yancey, and Thomas Merton has had as much influence on The Auralia Thread as any other text. In fact, the meaning of the name of Cal-raven’s dog comes from Eugene Peterson’s Eat This Book.

KCI: Hagah. That’s Hebrew for “meditate,” though Peterson points out that it also can also mean to “growl” or “chew” or “worry” as in a dog worrying a bone. Clever. (And aren’t I clever, too, for knowing all that? No, don’t answer that.)

Finally, if the series were to be turned into a cadre of movies, who would play the title role of each?

JO: I just hosted a book giveaway on my Facebook page where I asked people that same question. I saw some great ideas there. It’s hard to decide. I really don’t know who should play Cal-raven; he’d have to look about 22 years old.

I think Benicio Del Toro could make a great Jordam. It would take some amazing makeup, but he did that for The Wolfman.

Somebody suggested either Embeth Davidtz or Rosamund Pike for Jaralaine, and those are both brilliant.

I’d pick Summer Glau to play Cyndere, and I’d love to see the rock singer Annie Clark (better known as St. Vincent) play Emeriene. The young actor from The Road would make an excellent ale boy.

I haven’t come up with a better actor for Scharr ben Fray than Derek Jacobi, but I’m still pondering.

Well, friends, as you can see, the man is smart, creative, and savvy. He’s also written a beautiful trio of books (the last one comes out next year). If you’d like a copy of Raven’s Ladder, just leave a comment. Jack the random number generator will choose a number and if he picks yours, you get a free book! I’ll be out of town and completely offline by the time you read this, so Jack will choose his number when we return at the end of the month and I’ll let you know then who the lucky winner is.

When Jeanne’s oldest son nearly drowns at an end-of-the-school-year party, his life is held by a thread. Doctors say things like “chronic vegetative state.” But Jeanne and her husband, George, refuse to believe it. This lovely memoir recounts the days, weeks, and months after the accident and tells the beautiful and heart-breaking story of Jacob’s slow and miraculous awakening. It’s an honest, painful, hopeful story of loss, community, and healing.

While I disagree with some of Jeanne’s theology, I fell in love with her and her family as I read this book. I was awed by her faith and her vision, her ability to see God’s mercy and presence in the midst of horrible, tragic circumstances, and her willingness to let this tragedy draw her closer to God, trusting in His grace and guidance, His love and presence and care.

Jeanne’s graciousness extends to strangers: she agreed to answer a bunch of my impertinent questions and let me post them here on my blog. So, friends, it is with great pleasure that I introduce you to Jeanne Damoff.

*****

KCI: When did you start thinking about writing this memoir? How long till you actually started working on it? What (if anything) was the catalyst?

JD: About four years after our son Jacob’s near-drowning accident I began to sense that the Lord wanted me to write our story. We’d seen God work in so many amazing and beautiful ways in and through Jacob’s life, and I knew many hurting Christians needed to believe there was purpose in their suffering.

However, I wasn’t in any hurry to relive my own heartbreak, so for three years I gave God excuses why I couldn’t write it. My biggest one was lack of time. In 2002, let’s just say God cleared my schedule. I wasn’t exactly fired from my teaching job, but the position was eliminated. The school offered me a different position, but I knew what I was supposed to do. I went home and started working on the book.

KCI: Given the sudden nature of the accident and the constant attention Jacob required afterward, not to mention your own grief, shock, and pain, how did you remember and then reconstruct for the book the events and emotions of those days, weeks, and months after the accident?

JD: I had quite a bit of documentation: medical records, newspaper articles, correspondence, and lots of people I could interview. I also believe God preserved my memories. I tend to have a “videographic” memory anyway. I can replay events and conversations in my mind, complete with what people were wearing, the time of day, how hot or cold it was, etc. I don’t know if that’s a common writer trait–to observe and record your own moments–but I often do it. And apparently shock and grief intensify my memory. I had no trouble replaying those scenes in my mind. As you can imagine, this can be as much a curse as a blessing, but it certainly helps write a book.

KCI: One of the refrains of the book is “new mercies,” and you show vividly how God provides and cares for us in the midst of our troubles. Since writing is often a process of discovery, I was curious if you saw any new mercies as you looked back on this time that you hadn’t seen before?

JD: Oh my goodness, I couldn’t begin to count how many mercies I discovered by looking back! We knew God was with us in the midst of our ordeal, but we’d also entered brand new territory and had no idea how to navigate our way. We prayed for wisdom, and then we had to move forward trusting God would give it. I’m sure we all sometimes wish God would shine a spotlight on the path He has chosen, especially when faced with crucial choices. Looking back it is so much easier to trace His clear hand of guidance every step of the way.

KCI: What new mercies did you receive as you wrote the book?

JD: I not only had the opportunity to look back and see how God had worked all things together for good and created stunning beauty from our brokenness, I also followed up with various people who’d played a key role in Jacob’s recovery and learned how God had continued to work through the ripples He’d set in motion in their lives. If I hadn’t been writing a book, I probably never would have contacted those people and asked them to share their stories with me. I wept over the letters and e-mails I received in response. (Those testimonies appear in Appendix A of the book.)

KCI: Throughout the book, you use the image of water to interpret your experience. Jacob’s near drowning provides part of the reason for this image, but I wondered if there were other reasons you chose it, or if there were other images you considered using as an overarching interpretive lens?

JD: I love how God takes an event–the loss of one cherished stone–and sets ripples in motion that spread in all directions, affecting everything in their path. They may appear to diminish over time, but they continue long after they’re out of sight. Indeed, they don’t stop until they reach the shore. That picture captured my imagination before I started writing, so I never considered a different metaphor.

KCI: What was the hardest part of your story to write? Why?

JD: Reliving the agony of those first weeks and months was by far the hardest part, but it was also very cathartic. I wept my way through the entire first draft of the book. It was a cleansing release. Another hard part was remembering and confessing how selfish and self-pitying I was, but I wanted to be honest about that. God understands our human nature and is patient when we buck against suffering. He allows us to rant. I think some Christians need permission to do that.

KCI: What was the most fun or rewarding part?

JD: Besides reading the testimonies, the most fun and rewarding part has been receiving feedback from readers. My one prayer for this book is that God will place it in the hands of people who need to read it, and they will meet Him on the pages. I can’t tell you how humbled and delighted I am when I hear stories that assure me He’s answering that prayer. I also love all the opportunities to connect with people through speaking engagements and book signings. So much of our story is about community. Now that the book is out there, the community is growing. I love it!

KCI: And most important, of course: in the movie version of your life, who plays you? Why? (And who plays George?)

JD: Ha! This is a fun question. Let’s see. If we go by looks, I’d have to say Kristin Scott Thomas. Not only do people (including strangers) frequently tell me I look like her, I’ve even been mistaken for her in places like airports and fancy, big-city restaurants. However, if personality is more important, I’d probably pick Julia Louis-Dreyfus. She can act goofy enough to make a believable me.

People say my George looks a bit like Harrison Ford. He also has the Indiana Jones-ish professor/outdoorsman thing going on. So, yeah. I’ll go with Ford.

Okay, it’s settled. Now, when is this movie coming out?

Lucky for me, I didn’t have to slog through The Girl in the Orange Dress, Margot Starbuck’s debut memoir. Easily one of the best books I’ve read so far this summer, I ate it up in just a few days–and I wasn’t even on vacation.

Funny, self-mocking, self-aware, poignant, and painful, The Girl in the Orange Dress chronicles Margot’s sense of being abandoned and rejected by the men in her life—her biological father who gave her up for adoption, her adoptive father who divorced her adoptive mother and moved away, her new stepfather, and then her biological father again when he refused to meet with her—and by God the Father, whom she suspected was more like her earthly fathers than she would like. For all the pain of Margot’s story, though, it is ultimately a story of hope and healing, as she searches for—and finds—a father who will not fail.

Margot is a Facebook friend of mine and fellow Likewise author (the imprint under which our books are published), which is how I got lucky enough to interview her. That, and she’s super nice.

***

KCI: The story you tell is often heartbreaking, but somehow you manage to keep it from overwhelming the reader. Partly this is because of your sense of humor—you’re often laughing at yourself, even in the darkest moments. How did you manage to find humor in so much trauma?

MS: Good question. During some the events I describe in the book—such as unrequited love, and alternative fashion choices—I was able to stand outside of myself, at the time, and realize that what was happening was a little funny. It was only in looking back a decade or so later that I was able to recognize the thread of struggle or loss or redemption inherent in the event which was truly meaningful. Other moments and seasons, such as living under the weight of depression, were anything but humorous. I think I narrated these with some humor in the book because they would be so heavy to slog through as a reader.

I had no idea that I used humor in communicating until just two years ago, when a man in an audience to which I was speaking mentioned it to me afterwards. “Hmmm,” I thought, “I guess he’s right.” Weirdly, my birthmother has a good sense of humor, too. I’m unclear whether these things are transmitted genetically, but I suspect that if I keep up with my subscription to Reader’s Digest I’ll run across a cover story on just this thing one day.

KCI: When did you start thinking about writing this memoir? How long till you actually started working on it? What (if anything) was the catalyst?

MS: I think I’ve always had it in my heart. Although it was my agent and his wife, Greg and Becky Johnson at Wordserve Literary, who suggested that I write a spiritual memoir two years ago, some part of me knew that it was coming.

Some folks have wondered how memoirists can even remember conversations they had which transpired decades ago. Though I can’t speak for the lot of us, I’ve always been a chronicler. The first chapter of The Girl in the Orange Dress includes my first memoir, at age seven. Who even keeps that stuff? Chroniclers do. At ages nine and ten I was keeping elaborate written records for the Spicy Business club with my girlfriends. In high school I was writing down the weekend mall and parking lot adventures of my group of friends. Later, prayer journals and other diaries quickened my memory of some of the harder periods I’d rather forget.

So when Greg and Becky suggested a memoir, there was no question that it was the right project. On top of the crates of journals and assorted club handbooks, I also had some essays and reflections I’d written for myself in the midst of some of the struggles I describe in the book. As a result, the gathering and ironing happened in just four or five months.

KCI: What was the hardest part of your story to write? Why?

MS: Hmmmm, another good one. I think the most difficult parts were the ones in which I felt I was exposing my parents, both the ones with whom I remain close and also the ones with whom I’m no longer, or never have been, in relationship. This goes for a few other folks in the book as well. I had no interest in hurting anyone, but of course I was very interested in telling a story which was true. So, to tell the truth, in love, was the hardest part.

I was delighted when the reactions of a few of the people closest to me were, “Phew! It could have been worse.” That let me know that although I’d told the truth, I’d also preserved their dignity and reserved the most intimate parts of their stories.

KCI: What was the most fun part?

MS: The most fun part was giving voice to some of the stories I’ve loved telling over the years. I’m thinking particularly of the stories of goofy crushes. Although I changed a lot of people’s names in the book to pseudonyms, wanting to preserve their privacy, one of the names I chose to keep was the guy in college whom I fell in love with at first sight: B-O-B. After behaving like such a dork, I was able to track him down after twenty years and tell him the story from my weird little perspective and ask for his permission to use his name. Being able to act adultish in that exchange felt particularly gratifying.

KCI: Writing is often a process of discovery. Were there any memories or interpretations of past events that took you by surprise when you were writing your story?

MS: Because I’d decided, in my deepest places, that I wasn’t worth loving, a lot of love through the years which had fallen on the rocky soil of my heart had not taken root. The process of returning to those places, sweeping up that scattered love, and receiving it once again felt like a particular privilege.

It was just amazing to recognize how impenetrable my defenses had been as a girl and young woman. We defend ourselves against being hurt, and some of those strategies are just brilliant. I don’t think, in the book, that I mentioned I was a collector of shiny rubber superballs that kids get from vending machines and birthday party goodie bags. At one point my collection exceeded one thousand little spheres. What a perfectly appropriate representation of the shiny rubber façade I’d chosen to protect myself from life’s sharp edges. Other folks choose other defenses, but mine was acting shiny, happy, and resilient. It worked for me. And, of course, eventually it didn’t.

KCI: Your book focuses on your life as the search for a father, for reasons that you make pretty obvious. Did you ever think of writing your life through a different lens? What would that have been?

MS: Actually, the book we’d proposed to InterVarsity Press had been subtitled, “Searching for a Face Which Does Not Fail,” rather than father. When IVP suggested tailoring the story to deal with fatherhood, it was clearly not a stretch. It made a lot of sense, both theologically and personally, so I agreed.

I think each one of us has been born to experience a face which satisfies. We search for it from our earliest moments. The fact is, though, that human faces fail. They just do. We just do. We’re not able to be fully present to others in the ways that human hearts yearn to be seen, and heard, and known. As a mother, now, I wish it were otherwise. The best I can do is to point my own children toward the Face which is able to satisfy their deepest longings.

KCI: And most important, of course: in the movie version of your life, who plays you? Why?

MS: Ooh, this one’s fun! My kiddos are fans of the Disney Channel, so I could easily imagine smiley Miley Cyrus playing the teenage me. They don’t allow too much pain on the Disney Channel, and that’s a lot like the world I’d created for myself in childhood.

Maybe they’d find an unknown actress for adult me. I don’t think I would have concocted the spiritual memoir idea without the partnership of my agent, because in my mind I would have reserved memoir for folks who were already public figures. Apparently, that’s called “autobiography.” The thing that is causing TGITOD to resonate with readers isn’t that my story is particularly unique. Rather, I think readers are hearing chords of their own stories articulated in a way that makes sense to them. So I’d be fine with an as-yet unknown actress because I think the story itself works without the famous figure.

KCI: Any last words?

MS: I’d love to hear from anyone who’s reading the book!

KCI: If you’d like to get in touch with Margot, just click on the contact page of her website: margotstarbuck.com.

***

And as a final perk…
I’ve got a free copy of The Girl in the Orange Dress to give away to a lucky reader. All you have to do is respond to this blog by Thursday.

(“Pick me, pick me!” would be appropriate if you can’t think of anything else to say. “Kimberlee rocks” would work, too.)

On Thursday night, I’ll take the number of responses and use a random number generator (that would be either my husband or my son) to choose the lucky winner, whose name I’ll announce in Friday’s blog, along with instructions for how to collect your free book.