Maybe we as humans would be kinder people and have more compassion if we weren't so absolutely sure that we were right and "they" are wrong. Maybe there is no absolute right other than acceptance and love and kindness.
Hi My name is Beckie Weinheimer. My first YA novel, CONVERTING KATE, Viking Books, 2007 is about a sophomore girl named Kate Anderson who is trying to figure out the difference between faith and religion, find peace with the death of her non-believing father, figure out guys, learn how to deal with public school, (she's been homeschooled) and a lot of other things.
I was raised in a really conservative religious background and this inspired my story. But Kate is fiction, the church she grew up in The Church of the Holy Divine is fiction.
I have lived in Utah, Arizona, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, California, Virginia and now I live in Queens New York in a high rise. I love it. I live near a park so I go walking and listen to books on my MP3 player. I am trying to read all the books on the American Library Association's Best Young Adult Books of 2008. I am so honored that my book was also nominated. Wow, there are some really good books. Three I really like that resonate with me because of my own background are FORBIDDEN, BOOT CAMP and QUAKING.
I have two adult daughters who are really cool and pretty and smart (because they take after their dad--ha ha!). Seriously I do love my husband, who wouldn't love a guy who left his church over you and got up at five a.m. every morning so he could edit CONVERTING KATE. He's my hero!
I also had a daughter that died when she was twelve. She was the love of my life. She had cerebral palsy and was deaf and I learned so much from her and I will always miss her. I learned from her that people are different. We just come wired that way and that made me really think the whole gay issue with my church. I couldn't believe someone would really choose to be gay, any more than my daughter chose to be born with her disabilities. So I finally left my church and speak out against homophobia any time I can. You get to do that more when you write a book! :)
I love to do email and love to hear from my readers good or bad reviews. It means a lot to me. I also love to encourage other writers no matter their age, and I have new writer's tips on my website regularly.
Okay if you have gotten this far in my bio you are probably falling asleep, or grounded from everything else in the world! I believe in us. Not us and them, but just us. All of us. I love John Lennon's song Imagine. I love a lot of things. And get angry at abuse and human right violations and other ugly stuff. I have lots of passion.
Okay. Go back to the real world now, and sorry to have kept you so long!
Beckie Weinheimer Beckieweinhimer58@yahoo.com (the 58 is for the year I was born. Yeah, I'm really old!)
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