Musing on Dreams with Patti Lacy - WIN HER BOOK!

I'm so happy to welcome back today's guest blogger: my friend, and very cool author, Patti Lacy!

Musing
on Dreams…

Since Daddy was a boys’ dorm director at Baylor back in the early 1960s, two hundred brothers threw me over their shoulders, coaxed me to ride my trike down slick halls, let me operate the switchboard, taught me risqué songs…oh, the trouble…and fun…I had!

Daddy’s work then moved us like pieces about the Deep South checkerboard, and I attended a different school yearly until junior high. Books—and their characters—became the playground friends I didn’t make. I ferreted out clues for Nancy Drew, braided Black Beauty’s glorious mane. Oh, the places I went!

When I wasn’t reading, I dreamed about the mysterious lands in Tales of the Orient or the lovely home where Beautiful Joe lived. Dreams nourished and sustained me through some lonely times, and I thank God for that.

Fantasies morphed into more traditional middle-class desires during my teenaged years. I dreamed of marrying the perfect man, having five husky sons, living on a ranch complete with well-appointed stables and kennels while pursuing important jobs.

Hopes of wearing the robes of a judge or the faded jeans of a geologist vanished like mist over a Louisiana bayou when the Still, Small Voice whispered for me to teach, as my parents did. Then I found a good man who married me in spite of my flaws, and God gave us two children, one boy and one girl.

In 1995, God yanked us from our comfortable Southern porch and deposited us in Terre Haute, Indiana. Just hearing the words Midwest and blizzards and below zero prickled my skin. All my relatives whispered that we’d lost our noggins. After all, none of the clan had ventured north of the Mason-Dixon line—except for Chicago, and that didn’t really count. Wasn’t a big city a big city, even up North?

The Midwest offered amazing friends—and an incredible story about God’s ability to work good through ALL things. Ten years later, the Still Small Voice whispered for me to write that story. I shook my head and stomped my feet, but the Voice persisted. Three years later, Kregel Publications took a chance with my first attempt at writing, An Irishwoman’s Tale.

Dear friends, I have simplified my life by praying one dream: to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with my God, whose dream weaving makes filthy rags out of my own misguided notions. And oh, it’s an exciting way to live, rising every day and saying, “What do you have for me now, Lord? What do you have for me now?”

To find out more about Patti and her books, visit her website at http://www.pattilacy.com/


ABOUT THE AUTHOR

In 1955, Ann Qualls gave birth to her daughter Patti in the front seat of a Buick. By pure coincidence, Ann claims, their daughter was named Patti Day Qualls, PDQ.

This moniker has served Patti well, as she’s moved at least ten times, traveled to forty states, and changed occupations with a liberality unusual in native Texans. However, Patti thinks her latest profession will stick awhile.

The Still, Small Voice encouraged Patti to write after a brave Irish friend shared memories of betrayal and her decision to forgive. In 2008, An Irishwoman’s Tale was published by Kregel Publications. Patti’s second novel, What the Bayou Saw, released in 2009.

The secrets women keep and why they keep them continue to capture Patti’s imagination. She writes full time, teaches Bible studies and seminars, and attends book signings. Patti and her husband Alan, an Illinois State faculty member, live in Normal. They have two grown children and a dog named Laura.


ABOUT THE BOOK - What the Bayou Saw

Since leaving Louisiana, Sally Stevens has smothered her childhood with a sunny disposition and sugar-coated lies. No one, not even her beloved husband Sam, knows what happened to her and her best friend, Ella Ward, when they were twelve years old.

Now a teacher in Normal, Illinois, Sally has nearly forgotten her past. Then Shamika, one of her students, is violently attacked, and memories of segregation, a chain-link fence, and a blood oath bubble to the surface like a dead body in a bayou.

Finally entrapped in her web of lies, Sally—and Shamika—embark on a quest to find Ella in post-Katrina New Orleans. With the help of friends, family, and God, Sally can glimpse a life free of the mire of deceit and truly begin to live with joy. But will she pay the price for a lifetime of deception?


WIN THE BOOK

If you’d like to be entered to win a copy of What the Bayou Saw, just leave a reply to this blog. I’ll pick a winner at random on May 21st. Please leave an email address so I can contact you if you're the winner. (To prevent spammers from trolling for your email, please use this format with the brackets--you [at] yourmail [dot] com--or something similar.) Good luck!