Jan Karon
Born Janice Meredith Wilson in 1937, Jan Karon was raised on a farm near Lenoir, North Carolina. Karon knew at a very early age that she wanted to be a writer. She penned her first novel when she was 10 years old, the same year she won a short-story contest organized by the local high school. Karon married as a teenager and had a daughter, Candace.
At 18, Karon began working as a receptionist for a Charlotte, N.C. advertising agency. She advanced in the company after leaving samples of her writing on the desk of her boss, who eventually noticed her talent. Karon went on to have a highly successful career in the field, winning awards for ad agencies from Charlotte to San Francisco. In time, she became a creative vice president at the high-profile McKinney & Silver, in Raleigh. While there, she won the prestigious Stephen Kelly Award, with which the Magazine Publishers of America honor the year's best print campaign.
During her years in advertising, Karon kept alive her childhood ambition to be an author. At the age of 50, she left her career in advertising and moved to Blowing Rock, North Carolina, to pursue that dream. After struggling—and failing—to get a novel underway, Karon awoke one night with a mental image of an Episcopal priest walking down a village street. She grew curious about him, and started writing. Soon, Karon was publishing weekly installments about Father Tim in her local newspaper, The Blowing Rocket, which saw its circulation double as a result. "It certainly worked for Mr. Dickens", says Karon.
The Father Tim stories became Karon's first Mitford novel, At Home in Mitford. That book has since been nominated three times (1996, 1997, and 1998) for an ABBY (American Booksellers Book of the Year Award), which honors titles that bookstore owners most enjoy recommending to customers, and the only book ever nominated for three consecutive years. The fourth Mitford novel, A New Song, won both the Christy and Gold Medallion awards for outstanding contemporary fiction in 2000. A Common Life, In This Mountain, and Shepherds Abiding have also won Gold Medallion awards. Out to Canaan was the first Mitford novel to hit the New York Times bestseller list; subsequent novels have debuted on the New York Times list, often landing the #1 spot.
Karon has also published two Christmas-themed books based on the Mitford series, The Mitford Snowmen and Esther's Gift, as well as Jan Karon's Mitford Cookbook and Kitchen Reader. Other Mitford books include Patches of Godlight: Father Tim's Favorite Quotes, a compilation of wit and wisdom, and A Continual Feast: Words of Comfort and Celebration, Collected by Father Tim. In addition, Karon has written two children's books, Miss Fannie's Hat and Jeremy: The Tale of an Honest Bunny, and an illustrated book for all ages, The Trellis and the Seed.
Karon says her character-driven work seeks to give readers a large, extended family they can call their own. Though Light From Heaven is officially the final novel in the series, there's yet another Mitford book in this prolific author. Karon urges her millions of ardent fans to look for the Mitford Bedside Companion, releasing in the Fall of 2006. "It has everything in it but the kitchen sink", says Karon.
“Was he willing to blend into the life of another human being for the rest of his days, and have hers blend into his? That, of course, was the Bible’s bottom line on marriage: one flesh. Not separate entities, not two autonomous beings merely coming together at dinnertime or brushing past one another in the hallway, holding on to their singleness, guarding against invasion. One flesh!" (p. 207).”
“In World War One, they called it shell shock. Second time around, they called it battle fatigue. After 'Nam, it was post-traumatic stress disorder.”
“Easter is never deserved.”
“It was a wonderful life. To have a stage play right in this room, with real people acting real parts.”
“Loving can be hard. Sometimes we don't feel loving, but it isn't all about feeling. Very often it is about will. Practice that if you can.”
“...I've forgiven him. Again and again. Once done, of course, back comes the Enemy to persecute and prosecute, and I must ante up to God and forgive yet again.”
“He liked being in a place where everything from forgetfulness to homicide might be blamed on the heat.”
“He remembered the gravestone of a woman parishioner in the churchyard of St. John's in the Grove. DEMURE AT LAST, it read. He thought that the single most definitive and amusing epitaph he'd ever come across.”
“We must stop listening to voices from the past--and we must stop immediately.--Father Tim”
“In his bachelor's heart of hearts, he loved pie with an intensity that alarmed him. Yet, when he was offered seconds, he usually refused. "Wouldn't you like another piece of this nice coconut pie, Father?" he might be asked. "No, I don't believe I'd care for anymore," he'd say. An outright lie!”
“Alis volat propiss. (She flies with her own wings.)”
“Lord, make me a blessing to someone today.”
“I've got a lot to download on your mercy and grace. I've always rushed up to You and dumped whatever it was and hurried away, fascinated by my own busyness. I want to turn all this over to You slowly, carefully, examining every fragment as I pass it off, so there'll never be any question about it again. Every time I've dumped and run, I've nearly always run back and snatched it out of Your hands. Help me in this.......Right now, I'm certain of only one thing - that You love us, and that's where we all have to begin.”
“There may be circumstances in this life that God uses to keep bringing us back to Him, looking for His grace.”
“Sorrow and joy, he thought, so inextricably entwined that he could scarcely tell where one left off and the other began.”
“...weary of k knowing too much and understanding too little.”
“He eyed in the far corner of the room the carton of books they'd schlepped across the pond(ocean) They were both fearful of being stuck without a decent book, and who knew they would find everything from Virgil to Synge on the shelves of a fishing lodge?”
“Give me faith, Lord, to know Your Presence as surely as I know the beating of my own heart. I've felt so far from You....”
“He was praying the Psalms, as he'd done in times past, with the enemies of King David translated into his own enemies of fear and remorse and self-loathing, which, in their legions, had become as armies of darkness.”
“When the trees and the power lines crashed around you, when the very roof gave way above you, when the light turned to darkness and water turned to dust, did you call on Him? When you called on Him, was He somewhere up there, or was He as near as your very breath?”
“Paul said in the second epistle...the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine...they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires, and will turn from the truth and wander away to myths.”
“The standing fields [ready to harvest]were the legions who hadn't filled their God-vacuum with the One who was born to fill it; the standing fields were those who waited for someone to reach out and speak the truth, and tell them how they might be saved.”
“When we turn from our sin, and have the blessed forgiveness of the Almighty, then we can ask Him to run things, and let Him be in charge.”
“I believe that's when God first started speaking to my heart--the very day I started speaking to His!”
“In Ireland there’s no such thing as bad weather ~~~ only the wrong clothes.”
“Are you reading your Bible?"Ah, well...I was."And then you quit."You got it."Then, you can expect to be weak on one of your flanks, and that's precisely where the Enemy will come after you with a vengeance.”
“The firefly only shines when on the wing, So it is with us--when we stop, we darken.”
“Sometimes you have to gag on fancy before you can appreciate plain, th' way I see it. For too many years, I ate fancy, I dressed fancy, I talked fancy. A while back, I decided to start talkin' th' way I was raised t' talk, and for th' first time in forty years, I can understand what I'm sayin'.”
“Phillipians 4:13 for Pete's sake!”
“As long as you have any floor space at all, you have room for books! Just make two stacks of books the same height, place them three or four feet apart, lay a board across them, and repeat. Voila! Bookshelves!”
“One of the things that makes a dead leaf fall to the ground is the bud of the new leaf that pushes it off the limb.”
“RATS-IN-A-POKE!”
“I'd like you to know that I've forgiven him. Again and again. Once done, of course, back comes the Enemy to persecute and prosecute, and I must ante up to God and forgive yet again.”