Author Interview with Anne Blackburne: Heart of the Amish

I recently had the opportunity to interview Anne Blackburne, author of Ruth’s Gingersnap Surprise and Mary’s Calico Hope. This is a three-part interview. Today’s portion focuses on Anne’s two books, including her inspiration for writing Amish fiction.

NOTE: The final answer (about reader takeaways) contains a spoiler for Mary’s Calico Hope.

Your debut works are part of Barbour’s Heart of the Amish series. What inspired you to write about the Amish?

I’ve always been fascinated by cultures other than my own. I’ve studied languages since I was a child, and after high school I spent a year in French Canada living as an exchange student. 

After I married, my husband and I moved to the Lancaster, PA area for a year, and I had my first encounters with the Amish culture. I admired their adherence to a simpler lifestyle and their firm grip on their faith. 

Back in Ohio, I meet Amish folks through my work as a newspaper editor, and still admire their way of life. It seemed to me that it would be fun to write about people who, while they live a different way, are pretty much like the rest of us in essentials. And I was right; it is fun! 

Barbour’s Heart of the Amish series features titles by several different authors. I’ve been curious: Did you approach Barbour with a book/series idea that they integrated into the series, or did the publisher commission you to write in the series?

Neither! I wrote “Ruth’s Ginger Snap Surprise” several years earlier, and had been fine-tuning it.  I began querying agents with it, and had the incredible good fortune to capture the interest of Tamela Hancock Murray from the Steve Laube Agency. She offered to represent me, and of course I said, “Yes, please!” She sold the book to Barbour. I think the timing was just right. 

Both books include a character named Lydia Coblentz, an older Amish woman who advocates for and offers advice to the female protagonists. Can you tell me more about how Lydia came to be? Is she inspired by any real-life people you know?

What a great question! Lydia is a conglomeration of all the wise, good-humored, older women I’ve been fortunate to have in my life from the time I was a little girl, growing up surrounded by my grandmother and great aunts, and their fabulous friends. I’ve always enjoyed chatting with the elderly, especially women, and hearing what they know; things I may not have had time yet to learn! Lydia is that ideal older friend I’d like to have. And now that I’m a ‘woman of a certain age’, she’s the woman I’d like to become.

Your second book, Mary’s Calico Hope, released on June 1st! As you were drafting this title, was there a specific idea or message that the Lord put on your heart?

As I wrote this, I wanted to convey the idea that heroes don’t have to be perfect. We are all heroes of our own stories, right? And you seldom see a disabled person playing the lead in a story; only the physically perfect are portrayed as being heroes most of the time. I wanted Mary to be the lead of her story.

I had in mind the hope Mary always held close to her heart for healing and a better life; hope that she had nearly released because despite all the previous surgeries she’d endured, she had not reached a point where she could walk comfortably or without pain. 

Of course Mary wanted to be healed, but she had come to the point where she realized that might not happen, so she decided consciously to accept herself and to enjoy her life as it was, whether she ever married or not. 

She was open to God’s love and healing, though, so when Reuben came along, although it took a near-tragedy to remind her why she should, she opened herself up again to the possibility of more healing and of living with better mobility and less daily pain. It was hard! It was scary. There were no guarantees. But she trusted, and she hoped. And her little calico buddy, Hope, helped her stay focused. So did her friend, Lydia!

As a related question, what is one “takeaway” that you would like readers to have when reading Mary’s Calico Hope?

I did not miraculously give Mary a “perfect” body following her surgery, because that wouldn’t have been realistic, nor would it have been fair to all the people who live with disabilities who need to know that God loves them as they are, and also that they can have good lives as they are – that they are “good enough.” You hardly ever see a person with a disability as the hero of a story, and if you do, they generally end up magically cured before the end. That was not what I was going for. Because Mary was already beautiful and perfect in God’s eyes.