Monday, February 11, 2008

Author Highlight #1 - Welcome Audrey Hebbert

Audrey Hebbert is an inpiration, writing books at age 70. I've enjoyed e-mailing with Audrey and learning more about her passion for story telling and for sharing her heroine's passion for sharing Jesus with the world.
You can visit Audrey at her site: http://www.audreyhebbert.com/
If you have any comments or questions for Audrey, you can comment on this blog, or you can e-mail me at bcg@bonniegrove.come and I'll ensure Audrey gets your comments and questions. She has agreed to answer as many of your questions as she can.

Her is the highlight of Audrey Hebbert's book Red Light, Green Light

Main character Monica Moore (not her real name) was born in western Canada and grew up there. She moved to the U.S. with her husband who was a pathologist. I met her here in Omaha, where she continues to live after her husband's death in 1993. We've been friends for about 10 years.

Title and genre of your fiction book

Green Light Red Light, a novel set in China.

Why you write in this genre? The novel genre was used to prevent the Chinese officials from identifying main character Monica Moore. They wouldn’t allow her back in the country if they knew her identity.
Links to your books site and where people can buy it.
You can buy Green Light Red Light anywhere— My website (www.audreyhebbert.com), Amazon.com, your local bookstore, anywhere books are sold. For some of the online stores, you may have to type in my name [Hebbert, Audrey, Green Light Red Light] because there are so many children’s books called Red Light Green Light.

A synopsis of your story.

Green Light Red Light is a novel based on Monica Moore’s work as a volunteer English teacher in China. She boards the China Air jet with her friend, 16-year-old Erika Slade, and the teen trades hamburgers, cell phones and the company of her twin brother Billy for swarms of people speaking a strange language. The two Americans climb The Great Wall and get lost in The Forbidden City. They eat unusual foods. Unpleasant smells and pollution never go away. Monica and the team leaders baptize new converts in her bathtub. Erika’s new friends in China include pretty Amelia Cao and the team joker, 16-year-old Jesse Carter. The beautiful redhead wrestles with forgiving her abusive mother and her father’s killers in Iraq. Her world-view is first rocked and then obliterated as a new vision rises from the dust of an unfamiliar culture.

Why you wrote the novel.

I wrote this novel because I had no choice—our Lord compelled me to write. It took five years to write because I spent as much time in prayer as I spent writing. Every Christian needs to read this story because it challenges us to follow in the footsteps of a little lady from the Midwest who is sold out to Christ.

A significant moment for you as you were writing the book (eitherpersonally or professionally)

All events in the story are based in truth, although I changed details to maintain anonymity for the characters. I knew all along that I should write a wheelchair story that summarized one segment of Monica’s work, but I procrastinated as one task after another filled my time. Finally our Lord said, “write the wheelchair story.” I did, and it’s powerful. Tears streamed down my face until I could hardly see the monitor screen as the words flowed through my mind into my hands. Yes, I wrote the wheelchair story, and many people have commented on its significance for them.Why your Fiction Matters.

Few people realize the anointing Monica Moore operates under, but those who have worked with her know. Her one reason for agreeing to have this story told was to challenge other Christians, young and old, to do what she does. “I must tell everyone I meet about Jesus,” she says, “because it is unthinkable that anyone should not hear.”A list of other books you have written or that will be coming out soon.

I have enough material from the tapes Monica Moore dictated to write a four-book series about her short term missions trips and the thousands of people she has personally led to Christ, both in the U.S. and abroad. I hope to start the book about her work in Pakistan, Iraq, India and the Tsunami in March 2008. I will follow through with more books in the series as our Lord leads.

Other Books

I have a tweener book about my grandson’s dirt bike racing to publish, possibly late 2008. My granddaughters are features in picture books: Ellie Goes to Kindergarten and Gracie Takes a Ride. Another picture book is entitled, Bananas, that discusses the benefits of eating bananas, where they come from and other information about this delicious fruit.

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