Was it difficult to write about your faith?

Actually, it was so easy it was a little scary.  It's not putting yourself out there--every writer does that.  And, as I said, I always wrote constructive healing stories regardless of genre, hoping to inspire people to overcome their challenges constructively.  So now I'm just more overt about it.  My readers will see very little difference, I think.  But for me the difference is a welcome expansion.

Can you talk about memory?

Memory is a tricky thing.  First, we filter all the time, which is why our memories of specific events or situations vary from someone else's who experienced the exact same thing.  We can convince ourselves that something that did or didn't occur did or didn't occur.  The mind is a powerful thing.  The conscious mind filters.  What we can accept or cope with, we filter through our perspective and perceptions and take in.  But the subconscious doesn't filter anything.  It takes in everything and it never forgets.  Traumatic events it can bury so deep that they're blocked or never recalled.  But other memories are stored there, too, and these are the ones that we relate as being innate to us.  We remember different things for different reasons and we recall them for still other reasons.  For me, in this story, the key was if you recalled nothing, knew nothing, would you truly know nothing.  My answer is no.  The innate things--likes, dislikes, character, morals, values, integrity, judgment--many of those things and others of their ilk are innate.  So too is faith.  You can't see, smell or touch it, but like love, you know it's real.  And when you have it, you really have it.  So even when you don't know who you are, you know whose you are, and that alters your perspective and gives you an amazing coping skill that those who lack faith don't have.  How one copes with a challenge or traumatic event goes a long way toward defining them and their future.  So it's significant stuff.

You have an amazing website.

 The website has the usual, a bio, schedule, books and chapter excerpts, reviews, awards and honors and all the normal things.  I do four blogs, and they're located there:  My Kitchen Table, which is most often about writing (or whatever has me steamed at the moment); My Faith Zone, a simple woman's journey; no flash or dash, just honest exploration; Thinking Aloud, which is just a single random thought to ponder; and Kids' Faith Zone, written for preschoolers because my granddaughter got miffed that Gran writes all this stuff and doesn't write anything for kids.  So I do a video blog for her and other kids.

Then there's the Writers' Library, which is a collection of articles, lectures, and workshops I've done for the past twenty years, and questions and answers on topics I've been asked repeatedly, and that type of thing.

There's a yahoo group called Writers' Zone that I started over a decade ago (formerly Aids4Writers) where I respond to questions from members.

And then my Special Projects.  A couple are the Edna Sampson Award of Excellence and the Edna Sampson Persistence Award.  One honors writers who help other writers and persist at learning their craft, the other honors a new author who shows enormous promise.  Then there's the Edna Sampson Benevolence Fund, which I sponsor to help writers who need it.  We've helped after a house fire, paid light bills, sent a newly contracted author to a conference so she could meet her editor and agent and paid organizational dues.  That type of thing.  (Edna Sampson, by the way, was my mother.  She loved books her whole life and she loved authors too.)  My latest project is to help- libraries.  They're suffering horrific budget slashes.  One in Mary Esther, FL needed books badly.  In tough economic times, more people rely on libraries but because they're considered non-essential services, they suffer the first cuts.  So I did a book drive and we got nearly 1000 books for Mary Esther and they shared with other libraries in the group.  Now I want to save a bookmobile.

There's a ton of stuff on the site.  If I come across something and think, "Gee, that's a gap.  We should fill that."  Next thing I know, I've got a new special project in the works filling the gap.  Sometimes I forget I'm a mere mortal.

How has ITW changed your life?

In a dozen good ways.  Learning is always a fantastic opportunity and ITW has an abundance of opportunities for it.  But for me the most valuable asset in ITW is the people.  I was one of the ITW initial sponsors.  From its earliest days until this one, I can say I've yet to meet an author in ITW who has been too big, too important or (being blunt here) too full of him- or herself to reach out a hand and help other members.  Instead, I see a generosity of spirit that I absolutely love.  And it isn't from just one person.  It's everyone.  Positive, constructive, and always thinking of what can be done to make things better for everyone.  Not just for upper tier authors, or those who've already "made it" but for all the members.  I just love that.  I love being around people who don't forget where they came from or how mystified they were at times.  Ones willing to slow down and take an interest in others.  Ones you don't have to ask to lend a hand.  They notice and offer.  I can't point to one thing and say ITW changed my life this way.  I can say ITW has enriched my life in many, many ways.

What's next?

Deadly Ties.  Think human-trafficking with a perverted twist and a person who considers herself a functional Christian.  One who facilitates but doesn't get even scraps.  A lot of us feel that way at times.  But then something happens and we see that there really is a reason and a season for things, and they're all connected.

So, Forget Me Not is the beginning of a new series?

Forget Me Not is the first book in the Crossroads Crisis Center series.  Deadly Ties is book 2.  And the third is, at the moment, a gleam in my eye.

Jeff Ayers is the author of VOYAGES OF IMAGINATION: THE STAR TREK FICTION COMPANION Pocket Books-November 2006. He frequently reviews thrillers for Library Journal and regularly interviews authors for LJ, the Seattle Post-Intellgencer, and Writer Magazine.