I had a great time interviewing Allison Bottke for this month’s Christian Women Online ezine, which just came out. It was a thrill for both of us when Darlene decided to run this story on the cover. Click here to read the whole interview.

I read Allison’s lady-lit novel, A Stitch in Time, over the summer when I was recovering from my painful knee mishap. It was such a fun story, one of those books you start telling people they’ve just “got to read.”

So, it was no problem thinking up questions to ask someone as fascinating as Allison, who is also a prolific nonfiction writer and the creative force behind 21 books in the God Allows U-Turns series.

Allison doesn’t know this, but I sat behind her in a seminar about a year ago at the Glorieta Christian Writers’ conference. It was a workshop on book tables — how to display your creativity by offering more than just a stack of your paperback books for sale. The only reason I attended this class is because I had lunch with this funny lady who was teaching it, and she told me I just had to go. So I did, and I learned a lot, in case I ever need to have a book table.

Most of these workshops are attended by wannabes (like me), so I was surprised and a bit awed to see Allison Bottke in the audience. She’s even more striking in real person than in her pictures, and she asked the speaker questions during the class — which I thought was quite humble. Just goes to show how some people never stop wanting to learn and grow.

Allison sent me Before/After pictures of her Weight Loss Surgery. Truly amazing — she lost 120 pounds — much like her character Dee Decker in A Stitch in Time. In fact, her novel shows you more in detail what it’s like to live post-WLS. It gave me some good insight — and I wish I could eat this way all the time now! (Think: very small portions…)

As you can read from the interview, Allison’s outside transformation is nothing compared to what took place on the inside when she accepted Christ in her 30s. Wow. Her testimony continues to make an impact everywhere it’s told.

The rest of the ezine is full of great articles on everything: humorous stories about parenting, housekeeping with a large family, recipes, scrapbooking ideas, an online novel, etc. Fun! One sad piece of news is that the CWO blog is going to be discontinued. Darlene has decided this is not what God is calling her to do now — so she’s helped Iris jump in with a new daily devotional blog, Laced with Grace. It should start October 9th and will feature the inspirational writing of several bloggers.

Allison Bottke is also a blogger at her God Allows U-Turns blog, where she often invites guest bloggers to tell their U-Turns stories.

Note: These links to CWO will stay fresh for only the month of October. If you happen to find this post later, the links will be for the current issue.