WOF: Many of our readers ‘met’ you for the first time this year at Women of Faith’s Contagious Joy conferences, where you performed dramatic sketches.  If you had to choose just one, would you rather act or write?  (And aren’t you glad you don’t have to choose?)

DONNA:   I’m thrilled I don’t have to choose one or the other and thankful that God allows me to do both! 

WOF: What inspires you to write a new novel?  Is it a character or plot idea or theme or . . . ?

DONNA:    I wish I knew what inspired me! I think I’m always listening for stories. I’ve discovered that inspiration comes in many different forms.  Sometimes it can be something as simple as something said in passing by a friend or a statement by my pastor.  It also comes from watching the evening news or reading through the paper or just watching people at the grocery store.  Whatever that “something” is triggers more ideas in my head and I’ll start to put together characters and a plot to hold them together.  My problem is not a lack of ideas but a lack of time to put them all together!

WOF: The events in the book are seen from the perspective of nine-year-old Jane Gable.  Was it difficult to write a book through the eyes of a child?

DONNA:  No.  Jane tells the story as a grown woman looking back on 1947 and how that year changed everything in her life.  I wanted the reader to “see” the things that Jane did at that time and go through the questions and fears she was experiencing.  It was confusing to Jane how the people she loved in her community would treat the first black family to move into the area.  To Jane they were just people who needed a place to live. She couldn’t understand why so many people were prejudiced toward people they’d never met before.  I’ve already heard from readers who have said, “I grew up in a town like that,” or “Boy, did that book ever bring back memories.”  I’m honored to know that readers have really captured everything that Jane experienced at that time.   

WOF: Some of your characters are on the hostile side. Is it difficult to write about characters with attitudes and beliefs different from your own?

DONNA:  No, because I think that without Christ that I could easily be someone like them.  It’s only by the grace of God that I am a new person.  I spoke with a lot of different people about growing up in that era.  It was a simple time with simple pleasures but also a scary time because so many households were rebuilding their lives after the war.  Lynchings were already occurring in the South, which is so hard to believe.  We won the war overseas against a man who was annihilating people different from him yet evil was rearing its ugly head here because black people weren’t white!  I had to get inside the heads of some of those people for the book and show the prejudice, racism and ignorance that they’d let creep into their lives.  And it wasn’t just rednecks, either.  Some of the characters were upright, decent people but they didn’t want a black family living in their community.  That’s what was so confusing for Jane.  She admired and respected many of those people but was baffled by their actions.  She was learning that prejudice comes in all shapes and sizes.

WOF: The town of Morgan Hill is practically a character in its own right.  That seems like it’d be a little complicated; how did you keep track of all those people and places?

DONNA:  I’m so honored that you got that!  I wanted the community of Morgan Hill to be its own character—from the railroad tracks that ran right through the middle of town to Henry’s store that crackled with life every day and to the church and school where so many functions took place during that time.  St. Martin’s Press has already asked me to write more books set in that little community and I couldn’t be happier to take readers back to Morgan Hill.  Each book will have a different main character but all the action will take place right there in Morgan Hill so keep your eyes open for more books in this series!  It wasn’t difficult to keep track of the people because I would just ask myself, “Okay, where is Joe during this scene?  Where is Henry?”  Each member of the community was vital to the story so I had to keep track of their comings and goings.

WOF: Fran and Milo’s relationship is interesting – in a good way. Was it based on your own experience as an adoptive mom?

DONNA:  No, Milo is older than my girls when we adopted them.  They were both 10.5 months and came out of orphanages.  Milo was six and was growing up in a home filled with love with both parents and a sister.  Milo’s situation was difficult all the way around.  He lost everyone he loved and was then thrust into an all white home with a single mother who had never been around black people.  At one point Fran even says, “I don’t know anything about his people’s ways.”  She felt insufficient for the task she’d been given and it didn’t help that so many people around her wanted her to get rid of Milo.  But then there were those people who were going to stand next to her and Milo despite what people thought.  They were angels within reach for Fran.  Fran and her children (Jane and John) and Milo all had to figure out how to make things work.

WOF: If you had to boil down the message of Angels of Morgan Hill to one sentence, what would it be?

DONNA:  The hope of belonging and the dream of family.  Jane desperately wanted to have a complete family.  She’d grown up with a drunken father and when he died she hoped and prayed that somehow, some way she could be part of a real family.  In the same sense Milo wants a family where he belongs.  It’s a dream they both share.

WOF: What’s your favorite part of writing a book?  Your least favorite?

DONNA:  My favorite part is actually getting into the story and making it come to life.  My least favorite part is starting it!

WOF: What author(s) do you read and re-read?  What are you reading now?

DONNA:    I read lots of different authors but I re-read Philip Yancey.  I just re-read What’s So Amazing About Grace and now I’m reading his new book on prayer.  Unfortunately, I always have about three books going at once in addition to magazine articles and devotionals and of course the Bible.  You should see my night stand.  Add several children’s books on top of my books and I’m always looking at a mess.  I clean it off at least twice a week but then books start piling up again.  If I didn’t clean it I’d never make it to my bed!

WOF: What’s next for you?

DONNA:  My editor at St. Martin’s Press has asked me to write another Christmas novel for fall of ‘07 and then another Morgan Hill book for ‘08.  I’m working on the Christmas book now but think this will be the first deadline I miss because we’re expecting our little boy from Guatemala to arrive sometime in January or February and that’s when the manuscript is due.  Check back with me at that time to see if I’ve finished it and if I don’t answer the phone you’ll know why!