Author of The Perfect Blindside and Extreme Blindside, Leslea Wahl kindly took some time away from writing this week to chat with Pauline Books & Media.First, let’s talk a little about your life.I live in Colorado. In fact, I’m a Colorado native, even though my husband and I moved away for eight years… our families were here, though, and we were happy to be able to come back and live near them. I have three children, the youngest is in college now!  I’m a writer...

Maybe you haven’t done it yet, or maybe you’ve done it a dozen times. Either way, the day you send your child off to school can be terrifying. Are they ready? Will they be safe? Will they be kind? Will they be loved?In stepping out on their own, a child enters a new space in their life in which their mother cannot participate. And that’s scary. The only way a mom can enter into that piece of her child’s life is if, in some way, her child is brave enough to trust her with ...

Maybe you’re a mom.Biological, adoptive, foster, spiritual, school-mom, hospital-mom, mother-figure… however your motherhood is expressed.Maybe you’re a mom.And maybe you remember taking your mom for granted.I know I did. I saw my mom work for me, care for me, fight for me, and love me every day. And sure, I was grateful, but I didn’t realize just how much it all cost her… or how much joy I brought her.And that’s the heart of a mother.We tend to think o...

It’s sometimes easy to believe that we’re not measuring up to what God wants of us. Oh, we try to live good lives, but we often fall short of even our own expectations. We snap at our children. We forget a commitment we made. We have unpleasant thoughts about our next-door neighbor.When that happens, a lot of us feel that we’re the only people who have ever fallen short of doing what we should. We think that people in the early Church somehow lived better lives, purer lives, ho...

There is little doubt that one of our newest books, Brigid and the Butter, is based on folklore about St. Brigid of Ireland rather than on fact. Does that make it any less compelling for children to read? Our tradition says no: Jesus himself used parables (stories) to illustrate what he was talking about, and folklore (stories) often tells us more about who we are than any law or date can ever do. The farther back in time we go, the less we tend to know about people. Sometimes no one writes...

Everyone knows about St. Patrick. Or, rather, everyone thinks they know about St. Patrick. He was Irish, right? And he drove the snakes out of Ireland? And he has something to do with…green beer?

Answering the Call to Be a Young Adult Writerby Leslea Wahl; author of The Perfect BlindsideI’ve always enjoyed writing. For as long as I can remember I have been a creator of stories and have had ideas swirling through my head. Though I liked writing, I didn’t really pursue it. For years I followed other interests, but I was always drawn to writing. When I worked I wrote articles for in-house publications. I contributed to newsletters for organizations I volunteered with. I wrote summer learn...