Tune in on Thursday at 4:00 pm Central! To listen in – go here and just click on the player in the top right corner.
This week Amish author Leslie Gould will be on the show. We’ll be chatting about her new release, The Amish Midwife, and learning more about Leslie’s connection with the Amish.
More about Leslie: I live in Portland, Oregon with my husband, Peter, and our four children.
I began writing short fiction out of creative desperation when Peter was deployed to Germany with his Army Reserve medical unit during the first Gulf War.
Since high school, I’d wanted to write fiction and frequently jotted down character sketches, scenes, and unfinished stories, but I was afraid to truly try. If I failed, what would I have to dream about? When Peter was deployed, I became the single parent of a toddler and an infant. The overwhelming responsibility (and the need for a weekly escape!) inspired me to take a risk and sign up for a fiction writing class.
Acknowledgements along the way kept me writing–encouragement from teachers and writing group members, second place in the Willamette Writer’s Fiction Contest, a short story in Virtue Magazine, and a semifinalist placing for a Heekin Novel in Progress Fellowship.
I grew up in the small farming community of Pomeroy, Washington and graduated with a degree in history and communications from Judson Baptist College. My past professional positions include curator of the Swedenburg House Museum in Ashland, Oregon and editor of three Northwest magazines. My own close friendships and friendships I have witnessed inspired me to write my first novel, Garden of Dreams. My second novel, Beyond the Blue, was inspired by the adoption of our youngest daughter in 2001, although it is not her story. My third novel, Scrap Everything, was also inspired by friends and family.
Fiction, by far, is my preferred medium. My ultimate goal in writing is to convey God’s love, grace, and beauty. The themes of family and friendship are central to my writing. Fiction allows me to recreate emotions surrounding those relationships and to reveal truths about God and his redemptive work in our lives. Besides writing, I enjoy both teaching fiction and leading discussions about subjects included in my novels. I’ve presented at Oregon Christian Writers’ conferences, Multnomah Bible College, Vietnamese Heritage Camp, book groups and in community settings.
My family and I enjoy soccer, traveling, backpacking, camping with friends and extended family, and laughing at the antics of our parade of pets–toy poodle Max and cats Sam-I-Am and Meo Meo (“Cat Cat” in Vietnamese).
More about The Amish Midwife (co-written with Mindy Starns Clark): A deathbed confession… a dust carved box containing two locks of hair… a century-old letter about property in Switzerland…
Nurse-midwife Lexie Jaeger’s encounter with all three rekindles a burning desire to meet her biological family. Propelled on a personal journey of discovery, Lexie’s search for the truth takes her from her home in Oregon to the heart of Pennsylvania’s Amish country.
There she finds Marta Bayer, a mysterious lay-midwife who may hold the key to Lexie’s past. But Marta isn’t talking, especially now that she has troubles of her own following the death of an Amish patient during childbirth. As Lexie steps in to assume Marta’s patient load and continues the search for her birth family, a handsome local doctor proves to be a welcome distraction. But will he also distract her from James, the man back home who lovingly awaits her return?
From her Amish patients, Lexie learns the meaning of the Pennsylvania Dutch word demut: “to let be.” Will this woman who wants to control everything ever learn to depend totally on God? Or will her stubborn determination to unearth the secrets of the past at all costs only serve to tear her newfound family apart?
A compelling story about a search for identity and the ability to trust that God securely holds our whole life—past, present, and future.
