Anita Higman ~ Summer’s List

Award winning, bestselling author, Anita Higman has published forty books, both fiction and non-fiction, over the course of the past thirty years. Her book, A Tribute to Early Texas, with a foreword by Elmer Kelton, won a San Antonio Conservation Society Citation as well as a Westerners International Book Award. She is a two-time finalist for a Selah Award; she’s won a Cascade Award and an Inspirational Readers Choice Award; and she has been honored as a Barnes & Noble Houston area “Author of the Month.”

Anita and her husband are currently building a “storybook” home in the woods in Texas.

You write fiction and non-fiction. Which started you on your writing journey and which was the “detour”?

At the very beginning of my career — about thirty years ago — I wanted to write fiction, but almost no one was buying my stories. So, I got the idea to write nonfiction, and then publication became much easier for me. So, the nonfiction writing was a detour, but it was a good one. I discovered that I love nonfiction writing now as much fiction.

Let’s talk about your new novel, Summer’s List (Moody Publishers, June 2015). Please tell us about it.

Here’s is one of the blurbs surrounding the novel, Summer’s List:

Life hadn’t been easy for Summer Snow. In acts of selflessness — caring for her ailing parents and running her grandmother’s bookstore — she had forfeited her youth and dreams for the needs of others. And the only tries she had at love … didn’t turn out. She had the bookstore, she had her beloved granny, but she was missing something — or someone. Opportunity strikes when Granny sends Summer on an unexpected adventure with one Martin Langtree, a kind but gangly young man from Summer’s past. A childhood friendship is rekindled, a romance is sparked, and mysteries are solved in one magical Texas summer. Will Summer strike out on love again, or will things finally go her way?

God often uses our stories to teach us something. What did you learn (about life, faith, and/or even yourself) in the process of writing this book?

That I had to have faith to finish this story as well as anything in my life. Sometimes the story starts well and strong, but then it’s hard to keep the momentum going. But God is good, and when I felt my creativity running as slow as molasses, He intervened. And He does the same concerning all aspects of my life. I just need to remember to always have the faith.