Face to Face with Erin Lorence

Erin Lorence lives in Bonney Lake, Washington, with her husband, Brian, and their two daughters, Brooke and Savannah. Her lifelong love of reading, her gratitude to God, and her enjoyment of hiking in Central Oregon all inspired her to write the Dove Strong Trilogy. For more information, please  check out her website at www.erinlorence.com.

Welcome! We're so glad you could visit us today. 

Thanks, Angela! I really appreciate you having me.

What made you decide to become a writer?

I was 3 years old and at the check-out counter at the Puyallup Public Library. The librarian eyeballed the leaning towers of books my mom and I had stacked high on her counter. “Wow. That’s a lot of books. Are you sharing all these with a preschool class or something?” My mom laughed. “No, they’re all for Erin.”

I love to read. Love it. I grew up in a family of avid readers and with a mom who became a published, nonfiction author when I was a preteen. At the end of her life, she had nearly 40 books published by different publishing houses. During those years, I had a firsthand seat to what it meant to write—the diligent research, the hours at the computer, the rewriting, the disappointments, and the joy of holding that new published book with her name on the cover.

She’d smile at me. “You’re going to be an author too someday.”

I would grimace, remembering all her hours of tedium. “No, no. I like to read books. Not write them. Too much work.”

Then one winter day when I was 30, an idea for a story hit me as I shoveled snow from my driveway. My head grew hot. My heart sped up. The urge was overwhelming. I had to write the story down. So I began to write. And I wrote. And I rewrote until months later I had a finished manuscript saved on my computer. Then another amazing story idea hit...and my head grew hot. And again, I began to write.

To answer your question, Angela, I’m not sure I actually ever decided to become a writer. My mom had predicted it to be in my future...but I think it just sort of happened!

Wow, that is so cool about your mom. Thanks for sharing.
What do you want readers to come away with after reading your books?

First of all, I hope my readers get sucked into the journey and enjoy their time with my characters. I want them to have that sense of Oh, no, it’s over! when they read ‘The End’ in the third book of my Dove Strong trilogy, Sent Rising.

I wrote Dove Strong with an intense, in-your-face salvation message. My goal is for any reader who doesn’t know Christ to understand what a personal relationship with Christ could be like. If one person comes to Christ because of Dove Strong, I will do a happy dance!

Since Dove Strong is young adult Christian fiction, I assume many readers will already know Jesus. The message for those already saved is this: Care more about the unsaved! Care more about other people’s eternities.

It should bother us that the ‘lost’ are separated from God forever. My main character, Dove, begins her journey not caring one bit...but she learns to care. A lot. She gives up her own comfort and safety, and she even fights against other Christians to carry out Jesus’s Great Commission. I hope she motivates other believers to do the same.

What is one of your favorite scenes in Dove Strong?

One of my favorite scenes in Dove Strong is when she becomes a passenger in a car, her first time ever in a vehicle. Oh, and the driver has never been in a vehicle before either. The driver’s confidence and skill as a gifted warrior doesn’t help him one bit in his first attempt to drive. The results as they try to make a break for it and outdrive the police are pretty funny.  

When you are stressed, maybe a deadline’s approaching too fast, what is your favorite snack food? Or do you have another way to cope?

I hate coffee. But since I tend to get most of my writing and revisions done at night, I’ve learned to gag down a cup of coffee around 10 pm in order to stay awake into the early morning hours to reach my deadline. I usually have a Diet Pepsi ready as a chaser after I finish my cup of disgusting bitterness. Sorry coffee lovers!

When I don’t have a deadline, I usually opt for a cup of tea or a Diet Pepsi. Honestly, once I’m in the writing zone I tend to forget about eating and drinking. But a bit of caffeine doesn’t hurt!

What is your favorite thing about where you live?

I’m not a city-loving girl, and there is a lot I don’t like about living in Western Washington near Seattle, such as the terrible traffic and the ongoing rain. But I do have to admit that on a sunny day, it is a beautiful place to live!  The evergreens possess a magical beauty. Mount Rainier is a snowy peak on the horizon. And in the summer, we’re surrounded by nature that is so bright and vivid it makes me forget I’ve been sitting in the car, bumper to bumper and barely moving, for an hour.

My very favorite part of where I live is being close to family. My husband, daughters, and I are truly blessed to live an hour or less from all our family members. We get together Christmases, Easters, birthdays...or just because. Both my daughters have cousins in their classes at school. How cool is that!  

I never really thought about it before, but besides God, family and nature (especially trees) are what my heroine Dove treasures most as well!

Thanks so much for joining us, Erin! And congrats on your book!

Dove Strong loves God. She loves standing chin up, fists clenched when facing Satan’s attacks. But there’s one thing she doesn’t love—other people. So when this spiritually-gifted, antisocial teenager is chosen to join other believers in a trek across Satan’s territory, rattlesnakes and evil-intentioned Heathen aren’t her biggest challenges. But failure isn’t an option. In a month, the Christian Councils will decide the Reclaim, a vote on whether there’ll be a war between Christ’s and Satan’s followers to take back America. It is up to Dove, God’s messenger for peace, to reach her Council in time. Because if she doesn’t, things could get bloody.