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.

Don’t miss this week’s edition of Amish Wisdom. Judy Christie is filling in as guest host extraordinaire and welcoming Amish fiction authors Barbara Cameron and Kathryn Cushman to the show. Barbara will be giving us a peek into the unique Faith and Fiction Bible study series Abingdon Press has launched. Then novelist, Kathryn Cushman will join the show during the second half hour to talk her novel, Almost Amish.

Both authors are giving away a copy of their books. Leave a comment {HERE} for a chance to win (or email ckrumm@litfusegroup.com if you’re having a problem with the comment box). Winners will be notified next week via email.

More about Judy Christie: Judy Christie committed to write her first novel when she turned fifty – and her seventh novel, “Sweet Olive,” will be published this year. Like many writers, she started keeping a diary when she was nine – and still has all of them.  She loves to talk about reading and writing and how to slow down and enjoy each day more.

Judy is the author of the Green series of novels set in the fictional North Louisiana town of Green.  “Downtown Green,” the most recent, is No. 5 in the series.  Publishers Weekly has given Judy’s work a starred review, and Library Journal has compared the Green series to Jan Karon’s Mitford series and Philip Gulley’s Harmony series.

She also wrote the award-winning “Wreath,” a novel about a 16-year-old girl who is determined to finish high school after her mother dies – and lives in a Central Louisiana junkyard to do so.

Judy loves to help busy people slow down and enjoy life more and has written the popular Hurry Less Worry Less nonfiction books, including “Hurry Less Worry Less for Moms.”

She loves to visit with readers from her green couch and blogs at www.judychristie.com. Follow her on Twitter @judypchristie.

More about Barbara: Barbara is the author of more than 35 books – fiction and non-fiction. This month Heart in Hand is in bookstores, the third book in the Amish series Stitches in Time, as well as Her Restless Heart: A Woman’s Longing for Love and Acceptance, a Faith and Fiction series Bible study. Stitches in Time is Barbara’s second series for Abingdon Press  – the first was the popular  Quilts of Lancaster County series. A fourth book in that series, Annie’s Christmas Wish, will be out in August this year. Scraps of Evidence, a Quilts of Love title, will be published by Abingdon Press in December, 2013. 

An Amish Christmas, Expanded Edition (Beth Wiseman, Kathleen Fuller, Barbara Cameron, and Kelly Long) and An Amish Gathering (Wiseman, Fuller, Cameron) were published by Thomas Nelson in 2009 and landed on the Christian bestseller lists. Both of Barbara’s novellas in those anthologies were finalists for the American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW) Carol Award.

She is the first winner of the Golden Heart Award of the Romance Writers of America and a member of the local Volusia County Romance Writers of America chapter. Some of her titles include the Everything Weddings on a Budget Book and the Everything Roberts Rules of Order. She’s a former newspaper reporter. Check out her website at www.BarbaraCameron.com

More about Her Restless Heart: Her Restless Heart is the second study in the Faith and Fiction Bible study series that uses Christian fiction as a backdrop for exploring biblical themes. Just as Jesus used stories (parables) to teach important principles, inspirational fiction can open readers to greater understanding of themselves and spiritual themes.

Based on a novel of the same name by acclaimed Christian fiction author Barbara Cameron, this six-session Bible study explores the heart’s longing for love and acceptance and the Bible’s answer to this universal human need. The Participant Book has five daily readings per week, each including Scripture, reflections on the day’s topic with questions and space for writing responses, prayer, and a suggestion for the day—a question to ponder, Scripture to consider, or action to take.

More about Kathryn Cushman: Kathryn Cushman is a graduate of Samford University with a degree in pharmacy. She is the author of four previous novels, including Leaving Yesterday and A Promise to Remember, which were both finalists for the Carol Award in Women’s Fiction. Kathryn and her family currently live in Santa Barbara, California. Visit her Web site at www.kathryncushman.com.

More about Almost Amish: “Cushman crafts strong characters that are easy to connect with.”–Romantic Times

Julie Charlton is at the breaking point. She’s overwhelmed and burned out, and in today’s unrelenting society, her kids are, too. When her sister-in-law Susan, a Martha Stewart-in-training, lands the chance to participate in a reality TV series promoting simple living, and needs another family to join her, it seems like the perfect opportunity.

The location is an idyllic farm outside an Amish community in Tennessee. Julie, with her two children, joins Susan and her teenage daughter for a summer adventure. Susan needs to succeed in order to become self-sufficient after an ugly divorce, Julie needs to slow down long enough to remember what her priorities are and regain a sense of purpose and meaning. It becomes clear from the start that “living simple” is no simple matter. With the camera watching every move, Susan’s drive for perfection feels a lot like what they left behind, while Julie suddenly finds herself needing to stand up for slowing down. With each new challenge, their season of “going Amish” gets more and more complicated, as each woman learns unexpected lessons about herself and her family.