A Book in My Hands

Two weeks ago, on December 1, I received a package at work. I did not know what it was until I opened it and there was a copy of A Prairie Faith with a congratulations note from the staff at Eerdmans Publishers. December 1 is my birthday. It was a great birthday gift.

I thought that I’d close 2023 by reminiscing about the journey of discovery that eventually resulted in this book. One could track the development of the book by re-reading the 75+ blog posts on this site, but here’s a summary with some links at the end:

In January 2016, I began a new research project by sitting down to read Little House in the Big Woods and write a blog entry about how it engaged faith, Christianity, and the church. I ultimately hoped to write an article for a historical journal about Laura Ingalls Wilder’s faith.
During the rest of spring 2016, I read the rest of the Little House books, Pioneer Girl, and several biographies of Wilder and posted blogs about their engagement with her faith.
During the summer of 2016, I visited the Herbert Hoover Library in West Branch, Iowa, and looked at the letters, manuscripts, and other materials they have from Laura and Rose.
During the fall of 2016, I presented a paper about Wilder’s faith at the Conference on Faith and History Biennial Meeting, held at Regent University in Virginia Beach.
After the presentation, Heath Carter, one of the editors of the Library of Religious Biography, a series published by Eerdmans, reached out to me to ask if I wanted to write a full biography of Wilder that paid particular attention to her faith. I said that I would consider it.
During the spring semester in 2017, I taught an Honors seminar at Trinity about Wilder and the Little House books, and I wrote a book proposal for Eerdmans.
The proposal was accepted, and in July I signed a contract with them to deliver the manuscript at the end of August in 2022. I was planning for ten chapters and figured that I could write two chapters each summer for the following five years.
Also in July 2017, I presented a paper at LauraPalooza for the first time.
I took a research trip in June 2018 to Burr Oak, Iowa; Pepin, Wisconsin; Walnut Grove, Minnesota; and De Smet, South Dakota. I stayed with John Miller one night and we went to De Smet together and spent a day in the archives at the Laura Ingalls Wilder Historic Homes.
I had planned to travel to Missouri to do additional research in summer 2020, but Covid happened. John Miller also passed away that spring, depriving the United States of a great historian and me of a good mentor, encourager, and friend.
In late May of 2021, I did take a research trip to Missouri University of Science and Technology in Rolla, to Mansfield, and to Independence, Kansas.
Trinity granted me a sabbatical in spring 2022 to work on the book. I also did a research trip in March to the University of Missouri and the Missouri State Historical Society in Columbia and to the Missouri United Methodist Archives in Fayette.
I had finished a draft of the entire book by the end of March. During the next four months, I went through multiple revisions. I submitted the manuscript in August 2022, several weeks ahead of the deadline.
In July 2022, I presented at LauraPalooza again.
The manuscript was reviewed by two scholars, and I made revisions during the fall of 2022. The revised manuscript was accepted by the publisher in this year in early March.
Since then, I have worked on publicity materials, copyediting, proof-reading, and writing the index.

It has been a long road, and I appreciate all the help and encouragement provided by you, the readers of this blog. I’m also thankful to the Hoover Presidential Foundation for giving me a research grant in 2016 that kicked off the project, and to Trinity Christian College for supporting my research with three Summer Research Grants, travel money for research and presentations, and the Sabbatical.

Other developments during the last several months: I purchased a paid account with WordPress so that there are no longer ads on this site (good for everyone). I cleaned up my Amazon author page. I also submitted my list of people to get complimentary copies from the publisher when the book ships.

Remember that A Prairie Faith is available for pre-order at Amazon, bookshop.com, and other online booksellers. Christianbook.com has the best discount right now. Authors love it when people do pre-orders because they encourage the publisher to do more publicity as the release of the book approaches. Amazon’s listing also now has three recommendations from Bill Anderson, Pamela Riney-Kehrberg, and Mark Noll, and a recent photo of me. The release date is February 6, 2024, one day before Laura’s 157th birthday.

Thanks for going with me on this journey!

Links:

Eerdmans

Conference on Faith and History (CFH)

Trinity Christian College

Hoover Presidential Foundation

Posts on Wilder’s works

Posts on works about Wilder

Honors Seminar

LauraPalooza 2017 and the Mansfield homes and museum

2018 Research Trip: Burr Oak, Pepin, Walnut Grove, De Smet

John Miller memorial