Yes, I’m a writer and speaker. I’m also a wife. In the spring of 2005, I married Mart Martin, a wonderful godly man originally from Mississippi who loves me and my daughter and makes us both laugh. Several people can and do take credit for bringing Mart and me together, including the late C.S. Lewis, if he were still alive. But we know it was God who did the matchmaking. (Who knew you could meet your future mate at a Lewis conference?) Actually, we met before the conference but that’s where the romance began—at the beautiful Billy Graham Training Center at the Cove in the mountains outside Asheville, NC. We spent hours discussing Lewis and our lives. At the end of the weekend, we went our separate ways but, really, we’ve been together ever since.

I’m also the mother of a bubbly blond-haired, blue-eyed, bedimpled cutie who loves to read and write like I do. She’s also very good at math, which pleases me to no end. Maybe in a few years she’ll be able to explain trigonometry to me. She and Mart and I live with a sweet old dog in a colorful, art-filled home in the woods. We enjoy dinners out, visits to Starbucks, kid-friendly videos, puzzles and games, and occasional walks in our tree-lined neighborhood. We especially love Sundays with our Sabbath rituals, which help strengthen our bonds to each other and to God.

I’m the youngest of two daughters. Our parents raised us in the South. The four of us played softball in the church league every spring and summer. In the winter, we played Rook and Clue and Aggravation in the living room. We went to Dairy Queen on Friday nights in summertime and went to church year-round. Like the Southerners they are, my dad has a quirky sense of humor and my mom a gift for telling stories. From them, I got my love for words—and my respect for the power of words to make us laugh or cry. My sister shares that love and, as a copy editor, polishes other writers’ sentences (and sometimes mine too). When the two of us stand next to each other, people say, “Are y’all sisters?” When we nod, they say, “I knew it! I knew you were!” We don’t see what they see but we let them go on anyway. She and her husband, also a Southerner originally from North Carolina, have two blond sweeties with fine manners.

I’m a friend, a good one I hope, to a number of people who mean a lot to me—people I’ve gathered close over the years who have walked through the good and the bad times with me. As the Greek playwright Euripides said, “A man is known by the company he keeps.” I hope that’s true, because I want to be known by my true and loyal friends.

One of my favorite pastimes is sharing a meal with those friends and family members. I’m a foodie. I don’t like to cook but I love to eat. I love to celebrate special occasions and ordinary days around the table with friends. We plan the get-together around the food but the people make it memorable.

I also like bringing art into my life, whether it’s a painting, a play, or a piece of music. Art has enlarged my world on many levels. So have books. I’m a book lover from way back, spending summer afternoons in the library on Main Street, gathering a pile of books too heavy to carry without help. Now a Saturday afternoon spent browsing in a bookstore often yields a new find or two.

One pastime I don’t have is the urge to collect things. In fact, I have a box of baskets waiting to hold or display my collections, should I have any. I have a closet full of gorgeous blank journals and note cards for thoughts to keep or share with friends. I have a stack of special bookmarks in a coffee cup on my desk to go inside the hundreds of books we own. I have two big handfuls of Sharpies of every color because you never know when you might need a Permanent Marker. Upstairs in my dresser drawer are several pairs of handmade earrings from art festivals. The house I share with my family is, in fact, filled with art pieces of all types. But I can’t say that I collect anything.

Actually, that’s not true. I do collect quotations. I enjoy a catchy turn of phrase or pearl of wisdom. Here’s a good one: “When writing one’s own bio, one needs to know when to quit.” That would be my cue. Thanks for reading!