1. In the opening of the novel, Mary Lynn thinks God is trying to get her attention.  What do you make of what happened to her on her morning jog the day before Christmas?

2. Do you believe God can break through the seemingly natural order of things and heal a wounded leg?  Why or why not?

3. In the beginning of the story, do you think Mary Lynn and Jackson have a strong marriage?  In the Christmas day scene where Catherine receives a new car, Mary Lynn says she has become a woman “who bites her tongue.”   What has caused this committed relationship to begin to deteriorate?

4.  Jackson feels that his father woefully shortchanged him during his childhood.  Why?  In what ways are both Jackson and Mary Lynn still bound by (and living in reaction to) their childhood wounds? 

5. Before Jackson’s conversion, what kind of parent is he? Consider his original mission statement. Why is he determined to give his children the life he never had?  Is there a down-side or danger to this mission?

6. Why is it necessary for Catherine to have a point- of-view in this story?  What do you gain from her perspective?

7. What kind of parent do you think Catherine will grow up to be?

8. There are several “running” scenes in this book.  What does the act of running come to symbolize for Catherine and Mary Lynn?

9. Describe Jackson’s conversion and Mary Lynn’s reaction to it.  Why does she have such a hard time once her prayer for her husband to have a faith gets answered?  What does his newfound faith reveal about her faith and the idols in her own life?

10.  What do you make of Jackson’s zealousness?  Why doesn’t he have any inhibitions about sharing his faith or about reaching out to all walks of life?  Do you find his zeal refreshing or do you think he’s too pushy?  Why or why not? 

11.  How has Mary Lynn and Jackson’s relationship changed by the end of the story?  In what ways has their marriage been renewed?

12.  The Scoville family mission statement changes dramatically over the course of the novel.  By the end of the story the new mission is as follows:  To love the Lord back with all of our heart, all our soul and all our mind and to love our neighbors to the ends of the earth as we would love ourselves.  Imagine the Scovilles five years from now.  What do their lives look like?

PRAISE | EXCERPT | READING GROUP GUIDE

An emptiness dogs Mary Lynn Scoville. But it shouldn’t. After all, she’s achieved what few believed possible. Born in the rural south, she has reached the pinnacle of worldly success in Charleston, South Carolina. Married to a handsome real estate developer and mother to three accomplished daughters, Mary Lynn is one Debutante Society invitation away from truly having it all. And yet, it remains—an emptiness that no shopping trip, European vacation, or social calendar can fill.

While her husband commits social suicide and the life they worked so hard for crumbles around them, Mary Lynn wonders if their marriage can survive. Or if perhaps there really is a more abundant life that Jackson has discovered, richer than any she’s ever dreamed of.

PRAISE | EXCERPT | READING GROUP GUIDE

 Mary Lynn Scoville

December 24, 2009

            It was the morning before Christmas, and Mary Lynn was preparing for her sunrise jog around the tip of the Charleston Peninsula.  She stretched her thighs and calves in the gray light of her piazza, then she bounded out of her South Battery home, travelling west toward the Coast Guard Station like she did every morning as part of her effort to “finally get back in shape” since her fortieth birthday, eight short months ago.

By the time she reached Tradd Street, the gray had turned to a soft, creamy light, and she hung a left and rounded the corner onto Murray Boulevard where she traced the west tip of the peninsula as buoys bobbed in the churning water of the harbor and pelicans – beak first, wings pulled tight against their large prehistoric bodies – dove for breakfast in a thrilling kind of free fall. 

At her husband, Jackson’s strong suggestion, she stayed clear of the darkened cars parked along the edge of the waterway leading up to White Point Gardens.  Some unseemly characters gathered along the water’s edge at night and often fell asleep there not to mention the handful of homeless folks that made their berths on park benches.  There had been a murder in one of the cars last year as well as a rape, but the light was too high in the sky for any of that now and (as her friend from her bluegrass band days, Scottie Truluck boldly proclaimed the day after someone broke into her house and took off with her laptop and her sterling silver tea set) you couldn’t let fear get in the way of your city life.

Mary Lynn hit her stride, as usual, at the High Battery as a lone sailboat with little blinking white Christmas lights encircling its mast pushed through the choppy water.  She felt her heart rate rising, and she became conscious of her breathing so she attempted to take her mind off of her workout and the pounding of the pavement on her knees by going through her to-do list for the day as she passed the Carolina Yacht Club where her husband, Jackson, had been offered a membership after his second time through the application process.  Hot dog!  An invitation to join this exclusive, tight-knit club was a kind of proof that they had been officially accepted by Charleston society.  Not an easy feat in this historic southern city which, after two brutal wars and a depression that stretched on for half a century, had good reason to be wary of outsiders.  (Of course, they both knew they had Mark Waters – an older friend with hometown ties -  to thank for this and many of the doors that had been opened to them.) 

Still, Mark didn’t run the entire city (especially not the old Charleston set) no matter how deep his pockets, and the Yacht Club membership meant that they had finally passed some sort of insiders test after their move to the city ten years ago.  And that, along with the invitation Mary Lynn received last year to join the Charlestowne Garden Club and serve as Chairman of the Board of the old and prestigious Peninsula Day School made her feel like this truly was their home.  Their real home.  She smiled even as she panted.  She and Jackson, two country bumpkins from Meggett , South Carolina, who were somehow making their way into Charleston society.  Who’d have ever thunk it?

But that wasn’t even the primary goal for Jackson who was the sharpest, most focused man Mary Lynn had ever known.  The real goal for him (and he had written it down and asked her to put it in her jewelry box in an envelope marked “family mission statement”) was to give their three girls the life he and Mary Lynn never had.   This meant a top-rate education, exposure and immersion in the fine arts and frequent opportunities to see the big wide world beyond the Carolina lowcountry or the United States for that matter.   

“Not just education, Baby – Cultivation,” he would say as they lay side by side in their four poster antique bed purchased on King Street for a pretty penny – Jackson resting some classic novel he should have read in high school on his chest.  Then Mary Lynn would look up from The Post and Courier or Southern Living and as of late, the little black leather Bible Scottie had given her after her birthday luncheon meltdown and smile. 

Every time Mary Lynn and Jackson discussed their children, she had an image of her husband tilling the soil of their daughter’s minds and dropping down the little seeds like he did every spring growing up on his Daddy’s farm.   “Just like the tomaters, Darlin’,” he’d say in his exaggerated country accent.  “Only now it is little intellects that will one day be big as canteloupes!”

A pretty lofty mission. But a worthy one, Mary Lynn supposed.  Though sometimes she grew nervous that he rode the girls too hard with their school work and over scheduled them with extra-curricular activities – strings lessons, writing workshops, ballet and foreign language.  They sure didn’t have much time to lollygag or linger or strike out on an adventure as she had as a child roaming the corn fields on her uncle’s farm, climbing trees, building forts or spending the night in a sleeping bag beneath a blanket of stars.  Despite her Mama’s mis-steps and mean old Mrs. Gustafson who made sure the whole town knew every little detail about them, Mary Lynn had a sanctuary on her Uncle’s farm.  And much of her childhood she was ignorantly blissful of all the trouble and the gossip that surrounded her family as she played hide and seek in the corn husks with her Mama, running fast through the papery leaves which gently slapped her face.  Then crouching down as she heard the sweet voice of her only parent call, “Ready or not, here I come!”

But, Mary Lynn had to acknowledge the fruit of Jackson’s labors.  Thanks to his staying after them, the girls were well on their way to mastering a stringed instrument and they could carry on a conversation (and for their oldest, read a novel) in French and Spanish.  Imagine! 

Who would have guessed the upward turn their lives took after Jackson’s Daddy’s death revealed the little real estate gems he had inherited from a Great Uncle up and down the South Carolina coast?  The timing was right and Jackson had been shrewd.  He turned to Mark Waters who showed him just how to go about it.  This was in the early 90’s, well before the economic downturn, and Jackson sold each piece of property for five and even ten times what his father paid for it.  Then he bought more land, bought several low end housing projects Mark introduced him to, invested in some of Mark’s big commercial and condo development ventures and did the same year in and out for over a decade as the market soared. 

“Boy, you picked wisely,” Mary Lynn’s Mama had said the first time she came to visit them at their new home on South Battery.   She narrowed her eyes and looked up at Mary Lynn.  “’Course I thought Mark was going to gnash his teeth when he got a gander at the skinny, farm boy you had fallen for.”

“Mama, Mark was married by that point.”

  “Not that nuptials ever meant much to the Waters clan.”  She winked then shook her head.  Mary Lynn guessed she was thinking of her own engagement to Mark’s father who had proposed after she ran his office for years.  They never did make it to the altar. “But you saw something in Jackson no one else took the time to see, smart girl.”  Then she walked carefully over to the portrait of some 18th century British gentleman that their decorator had insisted they purchase for the foyer, rubbed the corner of its gold gilded frame and shook her head in disbelief before turning back.  “You saw the man in the boy, didn’t you?”

Mary Lynn had smiled.  Then she walked over and kissed her Mama’s made up cheek.  It felt cool like putty.  

“I was just lucky, Mama.”  (And that was the truth.  Jackson was the only boy in town she ever dated though Mark Waters had told her more than once he’d wait for her to grow up.  Of course, she wasn’t surprised that he didn’t. 

Her Mama had nodded her head as she walked into the foyer and rested her hand on the grand stair case’s large pineapple finial.  Then she gazed up the three flights of intricately trimmed hardwood stairs, clucked her tongue and said,  “Everybody gets lucky sometimes, I reckon’.”

Now if Jackson stuck with Mark and played it right, he might not have to work for the rest of his life, and he and Mary Lynn would leave a pretty penny to their girls some day.  With financial security and intellects as big as canteloupes, what more could their daughters need? 

But back to the to-do list.  Mary Lynn still had a few presents to wrap, and she needed to polish the silver serving pieces for the “show and tell” tea party they had hosted every Christmas afternoon for the last eight years.  Jackson, who had taken up the cello a few years ago, was trying to get their three daughters to perform a movement from a Haydn string quartet, Opus #9 in F major to be exact, and he had played the piece on the CD player so many times over the last month that Mary Lynn found that she was waking up from her sleep with the notes resounding in her head. 

She’d never really known of Haydn, she never knew a lick about classical music until they moved to Charleston and started going to the Symphony and the Spoleto Festival events.  Eventually they became supporters of the symphony and the College of Charleston’s Music Department and now she found she could recognize a few pieces by ear, though in all honesty, she always daydreamed when she went to a concert.  Sometimes it would be over, the audience would be standing for their ovation, and she’d be lost in thought about shelling butter beans on the back porch with Aunt Josey or sitting by Uncle Dale in the rocking chairs as he tuned his mandolin before they started in on Man of Constant Sorrow or Oh Brother Where Art Thou? with him singing low and Mary Lynn singing the dissonant high lonesome sound while she twirled and twirled around.  Uncle Dale said she had a voice that was pure sugar and more moves than a croaker sack full of eels.  And once when Mark Waters and his Daddy, Cecil, were over, Cecil teared up at the high lonesome sound and the twirling and then insisted on underwriting voice and guitar lessons from a famous country music writer who had settled in Charlston and Mary Lynn and her mother drove her the fifty minutes into town for over the next seven years until she graduated with an offer from her guitar instructor to join his newly formed blue grass band as the lead singer and an academic scholarship to USC- Beaufort.  Since she was smart enough even then to know that an eighteen year old girl didn’t need to be travelling in a band and since Jackson had proposed on bended knee, she did what felt right to her heart:  she chose the scholarship and married her sweetheart.

But on those mornings when she dropped the kids off at school and had to run a few errands, she turned back to the radio station she grew up listening to, an old blend of Rock-n-roll and country and bluegrass tapped along to Elvis Presley or Johnny Cash or the Stanley Brothers as she drove through the historic streets with her windows rolled up as if she were in her own secret time capsule, transporting herself back to when she was thirteen, dancing and twirling with her Mama to “Return to Sender” on the screened porch as Aunt Josey and Uncle Dale clapped and laughed. 

Catherine and Lilla, Mary Lynn’s oldest girls, both played violin and Casey, the baby by five years, played the viola.  Their family quartet sounded all right, except for the cello which made an occasional alley cat screech when Jackson came at it a little off angle.    She imagined they’d be practicing all day to get it right for tomorrow’s performance.

Now the sun was beginning to warm Mary Lynn’s back when she turned from East Bay Street onto Broad where she planned to sprint all-out to Meeting Street then stop and walk briskly home the rest of the way, her hands raised and clasped behind her head, her heart pounding, then slowing moment by moment as the brisk air chilled her sweaty body to the bone.  What a way to wake up!  She loved it.  And she had shed twelve of the fifteen pounds she had been trying to get rid of since her big birthday.

            But this morning, just after she bounded at full speed across Church Street and back onto the uneven sidewalk of Broad Street, the front tip of her left running shoe caught for a split second in a crooked old grate so that when she slammed her right foot down and lunged at a sharp angle to keep herself from somersaulting, she heard a tear just below the back of her knee and a pain blasted through her calf as though she had been shot at close range.

            “Agh!” she screamed, falling hard on her side and grasping the back of her right leg. 

            She knew what had happened, and she wasn’t sure if it was her knowledge or the pain that was causing the intense wave of nausea.  She spit and attempted to will her stomach to settle down as her aching muscle throbbed.

The injury, she was sure, was tennis leg, a rupture of the calf muscle on the inside of the leg.  She had suffered the same kind of tear in the same place two other times before.  Once when Scottie had taken her to a Joni Mitchell concert in Atlanta and she had danced a little too hard to “ California” and  just two years ago, when she was standing on the top of her living room sofa, hanging a new set of silk drapes hours before hosting a Parents Guild luncheon.

            Mary Lynn put her forehead on her knee and ground her teeth.  The stones from the old sidewalk were cool beneath her legs, and a chill worked its way up her spine.  At best, she would spend the next ten days on crutches icing down her leg every few hours. And then another six weeks in physical therapy.   Or worse, she would have to undergo surgery – something Dr. Powell had warned her about after her last rupture.   “Surgery means no bearing weight for four months,” he had said, looking over his tortoise shell bifocals at her.  “So be cautious, Mary Lynn.”

The street was quiet on this early Wednesday morning.  No one was around to gawk or help her up, and she started to weep more from the frustration, from the time she would lose in the days and weeks to come, from the stupid grate that no one in the city had bothered to right in maybe one hundred years than from the pain which seemed to compound itself with every new beat of her heart. 

            She put her clammy palms on the sidewalk and rotated her body over to her left side toward the entry way of the Spencer Art Gallery and then she slowly felt her way up the side of the stone building until she was upright.  She would have to walk on her tippy toes until she flagged someone down or found an open store where she could use the phone to call Jackson. 

            Mary Lynn swung her head back and forth in an effort to shake off the stars she was seeing.  She walked a good block, carefully, on the balls of her feet to the corner of Meeting and Broad singing “Walk a Mile in My Shoes” by Elvis just to keep herself going.  When she rounded the corner where St. Michael’s Episcopal Church stood, she spotted  Roy Summerall, the Rector, chatting animatedly to a familiar looking man who leaned against a parked taxi cab, steam rising from his coffee mug. 

            She recognized the man as soon as he glanced in her direction.  It was Craig MacPherson, Alyssa’s father.  (Alyssa was one of Catherine’s best friends.) He had lost his job as a real estate appraiser during the recent economic crisis, and he was forced to pull Alyssa out of the Peninsula Day School, the private school Mary Lynn’s daughters attended. Now she could see that the rumor she heard was true.  He was driving a cab to make ends meet.

Then just as she relaxed the balls of her feet after her favorite line in the chorus: “Yeah, before you abuse, criticize and accuse…” in her relief over finding some folks she knew could help her, the pain shot through her leg, worse than before, and she leaned forward and vomited all over the base of the large white church column closest to Broad Street.

            The men must have heard her wretching.  By the time she looked back up again, wincing and straining to get upright and back on her tip toes, they were by her side, gently placing her arms around their shoulders.

“You OK, Mary Lynn?”  Reverend Summerall said.  She had been attending his church with Scottie every now and then and she had met him once briefly at a Downtown Neighborhood Association gathering a while back, but she was sort of surprised that he remembered her name.

She pulled her arm back around, wiped her mouth with the back of her fleece jacket, then placed it on his shoulder again.  “Tennis Leg.”  She shook her head in disbelief.  “I tore a muscle in my calf.  It’s happened to me before.” 

The men made a quick plan to carry her to the cab. 

“On three,” Craig McPherson said and after he called out the numbers, she felt them lift her up and carefully scurry her down the sidewalk before setting her gently in the back seat of Craig’s taxi.

            “Let’s get you home,” Craig said.

            “Wait.”  Roy put his hand on her shoulder and uttered a quick prayer.  She couldn’t make out the words, but that didn’t matter.  She had no problem with prayers.  In fact, she was starting to like them.   She’d been going with Scottie to a women’s prayer group at the church every Wednesday afternoon for almost a year now, and she had become downright used to listening to folks pray out loud for one another’s needs though she’d never had the nerve to join in. 

            “Thank you.”  She looked up and swiveled her head back and forth to meet both sets of sympathetic eyes.  “I’ll be OK.”  And then to Roy.  “Sorry to leave a mess on your portico.”

            The priest smiled.  “Don’t worry about that.  Just take care of yourself.  I’ll check in on you later.”

            Mary Lynn nodded and Craig gently closed the cab door and walked around to the driver’s side.  She was surprised by how clean the car was.  It smelled like soap and maybe camellias?  Some sort of flower, anyway.  And when she looked up to see Craig’s picture and license displayed on the visor, she noticed a drawing that Alyssa must have made for him.  It was of the steeple of St. Michael’s with the sun shining through the second tier balcony. The one with the handsome arches. Then she saw the girl’s name inscribed in the far right corner.

Sitting down felt much better, and Mary Lynn was astonished by how much the pain receded when she took weight off of her leg.  She needed to get ice on her calf as soon as she got home, and she would have to elevate her leg (up higher than her heart as she recalled) to stop the ache.  That was how she would spend the whole afternoon – her leg in a pillow with a rope tied to the ceiling beam.  That and calling all of the guests to cancel tomorrow’s tea.

But, she felt so much better at this moment.  Whew.  Sitting down in the back of the clean cab car with the bright sun light shooting through the windows.  She felt relief.  As if, for a moment anyway, it had never happened.

            As they turned off of Meeting Street onto South Battery, she could see her historic white clap-board home in the distance, particularly grand in its Christmas décor – fresh garland around the door way and piazza rail, two magnolia leaf wreaths with large gold bows on each piazza door, and even a little red berry wreath around the head of the statue in the center of the fountain in the side garden.  That had been Casey’s idea, and it added a little whimsy to the decorations. Mary Lynn thought.  To her it made the house wink to the passerby as if to say, “There are children who live here!  It’s not a just a photo from Architectural Digest.  See?”  Every time Mary Lynn saw it, she grinned.

As Craig went around to help her out of the car, she turned to face him, and still did not feel the pain.  He took out his cell phone.  “Should I call Jackson to meet us down here?”

“No,” she said.  “He’s probably on his morning walk and I’m sure the girls are still asleep.”  She reached out her hand.  “If you help me out, I can make it in on the balls of my feet.”

Like Mary Lynn, Jackson had a morning ritual – walking their black Labrador, Mac, up King Street to Caviar and Bananas, munching on a scone and an espresso, reading the New York Times, preparing for a meeting with Mark or mapping out the day, the week or the month – depending on how exuberant he was – and walking briskly home.  Sometimes she ran into him a block from their house on her way home from her morning run.  He usually brought something back to her – a muffin or a strawberry dipped in chocolate which she discreetly gave to Anarosa, the housekeeper, to take home to her little boys.  And now that the girls were out of school for the holiday, he brought something for them as well.  Casey always enjoyed her treat, but the older girls were watching their weight, and they too gave their treat to Anarosa.

            Now when Craig leaned forward, she put her arm around his shoulder and let him hoist her up on her tippy toes.  Then she took a step forward on the balls of her feet, still leaning on him, and she didn’t feel any pain.  She took another step.  Nothing.  Her calf felt normal. She almost put her heels down, but she was afraid to. 

When a horn from a driver, stuck behind the recycling truck blasted just yards ahead, she was so startled, she leaned back and was forced to put her heel on the sidewalk. 

The pain behind the back of her knee was not there.

            She looked up at Craig.   Her eyebrows furrowed.  She rubbed the back of her leg.  No tenderness.  Nothing.  What in the world?

            “Hurt bad?” he said.  He shook his head in an effort to commiserate.  Then he stepped back and leaned forward with his hands on his knees to give her a little space.  Maybe he thought she might get sick again.

            She looked up at him.  Had she dreamed the whole thing?  No.  She had heard her muscle rip.  She had felt the shot of pain.  It had happened to her two other times in her life, and she knew precisely what it was.

            She decided not to answer Craig.  It was just so strange.  After a few seconds he lifted out his hand and she leaned into it expecting the pain to kick in, but it didn’t.  Once she was on the piazza, she thanked him and he headed back to his cab.  Then she unlocked the door, walked in the house with her heels firmly planted on the hard wood floor. 

Was she fine?

            She shook her right leg out.  She walked.  She did a few lunges then jumped up and down several times which caused Mac to bark and run into the foyer where he stopped, stared and tilted his head as if he was as confused as she was. 

Had Reverend Summerall’s prayer been answered?

            “How was your run?” Jackson handed her a chocolate croissant in a waxy little bag.  He was back sooner than she expected.

            How many calories in a chocolate croissant?   Way too many for a gal beating back a middle age paunch in the midst of the holiday season.  And how was her run?  Well, she wanted to tell him the whole story, but something held her back.  He had made it clear since she started going to church with Scottie, that he had no interest in religion.  He wasn’t going to stop her.  It didn’t bother him that she went.  He just didn’t want her to expect him to follow along with all of that.  He had a mission, after all, and he was focused.

            He cocked his head.  “Your jog OK, Baby?”

            She looked into his bright green eyes.  They blinked slowly.  It was the first time they had made eye contact today. 

“Amazing,” she finally said.  She smiled and lovingly squeezed his shoulder.  Then she gently accepted the little waxy bag and headed to the pantry where Anarosa kept her purse.

PRAISE | EXCERPT | READING GROUP GUIDE

From Publishers Weekly 

 Hart (Love, Charleston) writes inspirational fiction that leaves readers pondering the subtly expressed life lessons well after the final chapter. In her newest novel, she develops a very likable married couple with three daughters who have finally “arrived.” Mary Lynn and Jackson Scoville have happily worked their way from financial and social obscurity into the socioeconomic elite of Charleston, S.C. When Mary Lynn realizes an unexpected answer to a prayer offered on her behalf, she starts praying for Jackson to find God, too. As is often the case, answered prayers look different from what has been asked. Jackson does indeed find God, and when he does, life is turned upside down, leaving Mary Lynn disconcerted and angry. It takes yet another miracle to repair the hurt in the Scoville family’s lives, but Hart manages to make even the unlikely a real possibility in this richly written tale of discovering faith.

From Pat Conroy, author of The Prince of Tides 

“[Beth Webb Hart] knows South Carolina’s fabled lowcountry well and shares her knowledge with skill, wisdom and beauty.”

From Karen White,  best-selling author of The Beach Trees 

“Sunrise on the Battery is a beautiful story of discovery and rebirth, of changing gears in mid-stride, and trusting in God’s guidance.  On the surface Jackson and Mary Lynn have it all: a great marriage, a fabulous historic home, and three terrific children.  But in their quest to overcome their humble beginnings, Jackson and Mary Lynn have squeezed God out of their seemingly perfect life until a crisis of conscience turns their world upside down, illuminating the empty spaces once filled with the minutia of society’s demands.  Hart describes in exacting detail the fine bones of her hometown, peopling it with characters you care about and want to root for, and who you will find yourself cheering for at the startling conclusion.”

From Lisa Wingate,  best-selling author of Larkspur Cove 

“Do we always want what we pray for?  Sunrise on the Battery takes a poignant look at the intersection of faith and family responsibility, of a life for show and a life that feeds the soul.  Beth Webb Hart writes with a sense of Southern culture and the holy city of Charleston that is simply mesmerizing!”

From Rachel Hauck,  best-selling author of Dining with Joy

“Beth Webb Hart is fast becoming one of my favorite authors.  Sunrise on the Battery is one of the best books I’ve read all year.  Hart’s smooth prose prepares the reader for a surprising challenge while leaving them with hope and courage to change.  Don’t leave this book on your TBR pile.  Pick it up and read it”

From Marybeth Whalen,  author of She Makes It Look Easy

“Sunrise On The Battery is a rich story that hit me where I live on many levels. Beth Webb Hart has tapped into the layers of a family with her portrayal of the unit as a whole while exploring each individual’s complex interior life. I especially enjoyed her portrayal of the lives of teens, and the challenges of raising them. Beth is a talented author who has brought us another thought-provoking story.”

From Jenny B. Jones,  award winning author of There You’ll Find Me

“A beautifully crafted story of the power of love and the joy of living in surrender.”

From Romantic Times (Top Pick!)

“Hart describes the Southern setting so clearly that it almost becomes a character in the story.”

PRAISE | EXCERPT | READING GROUP GUIDE

Please note: We are still in the process of confirming additional events. Check back to see if we have added a stop in your area.

Friday, October 14, 2011:
Pawleys Island, SC -  Author Luncheon at 11 am at Kimbel’s at Wachesaw  followed by in store book-signing at Litchfield Books at 2 pm. Go to www.litchfieldbooks.com to make a reservation or call the store at 843.237.8138.

Sunday, November 6, 2011:
Charleston, SC -  Book-signing and reception at St. Michael’s Episcopal Church’s Saints Alive Bookstore (71 Broad Street) at 12:15.   Go to www.st.michaelschurch.net  or call the store at 843.723.0603.  This event is in honor of the store’s 4th anniversary!  Great food and a warm welcome for all!

Here is what I have come to understand about writing- Much like real life, we all have blind spots and so do our plot trajectories, our characters and our themes. We need to share our work with a group of trusted authors and be willing to receive their critiques. I’ve been in a workshop setting since high school as either a student or a teacher, and my best work is always the one that is torn to shreds by a round table of fellow authors who are willing to point out where the piece can be improved. This always involves putting my ego aside and opening my mind.

One of the ways I’ve grown as a writer and a human being is through teaching. Whether it is a group of elementary school kids who have no fears or inhibitions about writing a story or a room full of college students who dread turning something in to be read by their classmates, the model is the same. We study an element of the craft (Plot, characterization, setting, point-of-view, voice, etc.), we read a few successful short stories that serve as an example of how it can be done, then we try our hand at our own piece which we share with the class. This process, known as “workshopping” is both exhilarating and frightening. The author can not defend his or her piece or explain what he or she “meant”. They must sit still, keep quiet and listen to the individual critiques of their classmates and teacher. Then they take the ideas, rework the piece, and resubmit it for a second go round. You can’t imagine how much the work improves over the course of the semester when the writer is willing to go back and reshape the piece on behalf of that most important person, the reader.

Depending on my writing schedule, I am available to speak about the craft of writing, lead a workshop or critique an individual manuscript. Go to contact to find out how to reach me.

We moved to Greenville, South Carolina when I was twelve years old. I had an English teacher who encouraged me to apply to the local fine arts high school and once I was accepted I chose to focus on poetry. Poet Jan Bailey was my beloved Creative Writing teacher and, she cracked open the world for me by exposing me to quality poetry and fiction. Jan soon pointed out that all of my poems were narrative and forced me to try my hand at a short story. My first story was about three crazed nuns in a parochial school who locked their students away for cracking the campus birdbath. It was so much fun to write fiction (and much more forgiving than poetry) that I never looked back.

I went on to the undergraduate Literature and Creative Writing program at Hollins College because I yearned to study with the very professors who had taught some of my favorite authors such as Lee Smith, Jill McCorkle and Annie Dillard. At Hollins I read and wrote voraciously and submitted my stories to be workshopped on a regular basis. It was an immeasurably beneficial experience because it helped me to identify my voice.

After I graduated, I moved to Washington, DC to work for Share Our Strength where I spent three years working with writers, bookstores and MFA programs to coordinate Writers Harvest, a literary benefit that took place in over 100 locations nationwide to raise money for community food banks and soup kitchens. During this time, I had the opportunity to work with some of the country’s best authors including Toni Morrison, Don DeLillo, Charles Baxter, Richard Russo, Gloria Naylor, Maya Angelou and Bret Lott. After encouragement from several of these authors and a blessing from RHW Dillard, my Creative Writing professor from Hollins, I decided to attend the MFA fiction writing program at Sarah Lawrence College. I started my first novel, Grace at Low Tide, during this time. Portions of the novel served as my graduate school thesis.

Overall, writing and publishing my first novel was a ten year process. I wrote and revised the novel over a six year period. (However, I had a baby in the midst of it, and I certainly took off several months during that time, so it’s difficult to say for sure.) After I completed the manuscript, I spent two years securing an agent and two more searching for a publishing home.

For those aspiring writers out there, this is an important piece of the story- My agent, who certainly did shop the book around, didn’t actually open the door for me with my publisher. A kind novelist, Gayle Roper, who I met at a writing conference read a portion of the book and called the fiction editor at Thomas Nelson to tell them to be on the look-out for my manuscript. Therefore, it never hurts to attend a writing conference and show your work to other writers. You never know what good Samaritan might stick their neck out for you.

My advice to aspiring writers is to read the best quality literature you can get your hands on. The New York Times compiled a survey a few years ago taken from among the top writers and editors in the publishing world regarding the best work of American fiction published over the last twenty-five years. I’d recommend any book on that list. The top choice was Toni Morisson’s Beloved and the rest can be viewed at the following link http://www.nytimes.com/ref/books/fiction-25-years.html.

Some of my favorite books on the craft of writing include Mystery and Manners by Flannery O’Connor, Burning Down the House by Charles Baxter, Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, The Writing Life by Annie Dillard, Writing the Break-Out Novel by Don Maass, and Writing Fiction by Janet Burroway.

At the tender age of nineteen, at a time when I could barely stand to be in my own skin for a variety of reasons, I experienced love. It dawned on me that all of those marquee signs along the back roads of the Bible belt (which I made an awful lot of fun of growing up) were actually true. That is, someone loved me and had already given up their life for me despite my wayward ways and the darkness in my own heart that was becoming all too obvious, unbearably so. I believe this person, this rescuer is Jesus, God made flesh, and I happen to be convinced that he loves and desires every human being on earth. If you are wondering, hear me out: you are wanted and you are loved.

When I talk about Christianity, it must be acknowledged that Christians mess up all the time. They throw grace out of the window and pass judgment, they don’t love their neighbors, they fight with one another, they are quick to condemn a wrong-doing that is a social taboo and they easily over-look a wrong-doing that is the social norm, and saddest of all, they are slow to acknowledge the suffering in the world and to move into action on behalf of others in need. In essence, many don’t model the life of Jesus. However, the doctrine of grace is an awesome reality, one I hope no one would overlook despite the failings of human beings who claim to be Christians. I, for one, was thankful to take hold of it.

In terms of my writing, I don’t set out to write a “religious” book. My first aim is always to write a good story – one with a gripping conflict and compelling characters. That said, the themes that invariably surface in my stories are the same ones that I wrestle with in my own mind and heart, and they are as follows: receiving and extending grace, loving the unlovable someone in my life and finding hope in the midst of a hopeless situation.

Download a press release for Beth Webb’s latest book, Love, Charleston, here.