Interview with Colleen Coble

We caught up with Colleen just after a busy weekend of book signings–including one at a covered bridge festival in Indiana, where Anathema is set.

WOF:
Anathema . . . not a word many people are familiar with! What does it mean and why did you choose it as your title?

COLLEEN:
It’s a biblical word; it’s actually in the Bible. It talks about “Let something be an anathema to you.” I was brainstorming with my agent Karen Solem and some others; I had story pretty well fleshed out and we started working on titles. Dr. Mel Hodde came up with the title; he’s half of the writing team Hannah Alexander who won a Christy in romance two or three years ago. (His wife does the actual writing and he vets the medical stuff.) It’s perfect because the meaning is ’shunned, avoided, total avoidance kind of thing’ and since it is an Amish story and Hannah leaves the community after she’s been baptized, she’s shunned. It kind of fit the whole story.

WOF:
You must have done a lot of research on Amish lifestyle and customs. How did you go about that?

COLLEEN:
I did tons and tons of research; I read stacks of books. But what was more helpful than anything is that I have some Amish friends. Being in their home, I could actually see how things were set up. One of the things that was very interesting to me, which I hadn’t realized and I actually put in the book, was that the gas lights make a lot of noise. I didn’t know that! I’d never been around gas lights, but they hiss and sputter and just make a lot of noise.

Sarah, my Amish friend, made me some of the tea I mentioned in the book. It was so good! I observed her making coffee and heating water. They were a really great help in how the sects can be so different. In Indiana, for example, there are two bishops; one on the north side and one on the south side. One of the bishops allows gas-fired hot water heat and one does not. So it depends on what bishop you’re under. You can tell by looking at the buggies what sect they’re from. An open buggy with no covering over it is usually associated with the Swiss Amish, which is what I ended up making Hannah and her family because it was just a little different–and they yodel. [Laughing] It was all about the yodeling.

WOF:
How did your Amish friends feel about you writing a book with Amish characters?

COLLEEN:
I think initially they were a little hesitant because some of the other Amish books that have been out have been very critical. I was trying to go at it as a story that illustrated the Amish life without making judgment calls. I tried to walk that fine balancing act. I certainly didn’t want to offend them because I love them dearly, but I still wanted to show the differences between us Englisch and them. But they loved the book, so that was good.

WOF:
Each chapter begins with a quote from Hannah or her mother. What is the significance of that?

COLLEEN:
Quilting is very important in the Amish community and I wanted to pull in a physical way to illustrate how they believe. So I took a look at quilts and the meaning behind quilts and used that to illustrate some of their faith.

WOF:
Quilts play a major role in the book. Do you make or collect quilts yourself?

COLLEEN:
I do make quilts–at least I did before I had deadlines! Deadlines change everything. I did a lot of quilting before I was writing full-time, now not so much. But I have a new granddaughter, three weeks old today (my first grandchild!) so I’ve been thinking about making her a quilt.

WOF:
At its heart, Anathema is a study of the cause and effects of bitterness and forgiveness. Was that your plan from the beginning?

COLLEEN:
It was. That was how the whole story really came together. I was talking with my agent right after the Amish school shooting. Everyone was just amazed at the way the Amish community reached out to family of the murderer and forgave what had been done. That’s another thing I’ve observed with my Amish friends, they are just so accepting of whatever God’s will is. If God wills it then that’s the way it should be. They just have this calm acceptance somehow. Karen, my agent, and I were bouncing ideas back and forth about what would happen if an Amish young woman couldn’t forgive.

If you read my books, most people have picked up that there’s often a theme of forgiveness. A lot of that comes from my own life, where I’ve seen the effects of bitterness in family members or whatever, and it grieves my heart. I’m a peacemaker. That’s kind of the theme of my life, really, is to forgive and show God’s love and reach out to people who are hurting. This is probably the first book that I went in deliberately in a big way to try to show that. It’s kind of crept into other books; even when I start out with another spiritual theme [forgiveness] always creeps in somehow. I can’t seem to stop it! But with this one that was the main thrust of the story.

WOF:
Hannah asks, “Didn’t God always demand a sacrifice?” It seems that we always want to make deals with God.

COLLEEN:
That’s exactly right. That’s what I wanted to show–that we don’t need to make deals with God. God loves us and he’s already made the sacrifice. We get it so turned around that we put ourselves through things that we don’t have to put ourselves through at all. We make it so much harder than it is. I like to illustrate that and hope people get the take-away value.

WOF:
Reece is an interesting character. As soon as we think we’ve got him pegged, he does something unexpected. What’s your process for making a character well-rounded?

COLLEEN:
Well, he was definitely a bad guy, but there’s good and bad in everyone. When I’m looking at my villain or even my main character, I’m trying to think of all sides of them. Even though he did some horrible things, he loved Hannah as much as he was capable. Although it was a destructive, possessive kind of love, he did love her. He ended up basically sacrificing himself for her. Family trauma and abusive situations happen a lot in our society today. I wanted to try to show a peek into how that comes together. The other side of it, even though it’s wrong and twisted, is how the abuser is looking at a situation–I wanted to show that. Even though they’re wrong, they often have good in them, even though it comes out the wrong way.

WOF:
Do you think you could ever live an Amish lifestyle yourself?

COLLEEN:
I couldn’t live without my computer, so that would be no! What’s interesting is my Amish friends live in northern Indiana, so they’re in one of the more progressive areas. Although in their home they don’t have computers or anything, they have a harmonica, they have hot water and a normal bathroom with a shower and everything because they have hot water heat from propane. The Amish don’t want to be connected to electricity because that’s connected to society, but an individual tank that’s not connected anywhere is OK. My friend Merv, the husband of the family, works at a lumberyard and he has a computer there. I’ll email him and it’s hysterical to me to think about emailing this little Amish guy and him answering me. So their lifestyle wouldn’t be quite as bad as some of the more strict ones, but even so, no, I don’t think I could live an Amish life myself. The other thing is they don’t have the sense of security of the believer that I believe is so important. The Amish believe you have to maintain good works and there’s no real security of knowing you’re going to heaven. They hope they’re going to heaven someday but they don’t have that assurance.

WOF:
We hear (via Twitter) you’re currently writing a gothic novel. Tell us what that means and a little about the book.

COLLEEN:
I’m working on Nightsong right now. It’s set in a creepy old mansion near Charleston surrounded by black water; it’s got some alligators. It’s kind of a modern-day take on Bluebeard’s Castle. The new bride in is in the home, there’s a locked door and she shouldn’t get in that room but of course she IS going to get in that room. The main character is an Irish singer kind of like the Celtic Woman group. (I just love them!) My main character is kind of based on girl who plays fiddle, who flips her hair around as she’s playing and dancing around the stage. My character has remarried and is not in love with her new husband yet and there are some mistaken identity issues. It’s a modern setting; I’m calling it a gothic because of the atmosphere–the old mansion thing and some strange goings-on there.

WOF:
We know you’re dying to, so tell us about little Alexa!

COLLEEN:
Oh my goodness, yes. She is the most beautiful baby I have ever seen in my life! My son said, “Mom, I thought I was the most beautiful baby.” I said, “You’ve just been kicked to number two by your daughter.” The other day I would write a little bit, then look at her picture, then write a little bit, then look at her picture. Then I twittered and said “Somebody send the white coats because I’m now talking to Alexa’s picture.” I thought, I have totally lost it. I didn’t know becoming a grandmother would be so totally obsessive. I had the world’s best grandmother; she taught me about God and she showed me how to live and total acceptance and unconditional love. I want to be able to do that with my grandchild.

WOF:
Is she going to be in any of your books?

COLLEEN:
Actually, Cry in the Night, the book that’s coming out in February, is a new Rock Harbor novel. Oh, Brie is in terrible trouble, I’ll tell you that. There is a baby in that; her caretaker is killed and Samson finds the baby hidden–that baby is Alexa.

My kids say, “Watch what you do because everything you do winds up in a book.” When the kids took up diving, diving went into the books. When my son got a Harley, I had a character who was a Harley rider. Nothing is sacred in the family; it has to end up in a book.

You want to hear a fun story? The Aloha Reef books were set in Hawaii; I made four trips there to research those books. The kids went with us; neither was married at the time. They’re big divers and their favorite dive master, Mark . . . there was always this little spark between him and Kara, but she had a boyfriend and he had a girlfriend. The last trip, a year ago March, neither was entangled and they spent the whole 10 days together. The next weekend he flew to Phoenix, where she lives, and in 2 weeks he had moved to Phoenix (he has a brother who lives there) and gotten a job. They’re getting married in 3 weeks! They’ll be married in Hawaii on the beach. So I jokingly say that my writing brought me a new son.