Yesterday I began a conversation with George Estreich, author of The Shape of the Eye, about writing and family and Down syndrome. Today, the interview continues as George writes about medical ethics, culture, and inclusion, among other things:

When I wrote A Good and Perfect Gift, I hoped to write a ...

**Update: Jeannie is the winner of a free copy of Theresa's book. Congratulations!

Yesterday I posted the first part of an interview with Theresa Shea, author of The Unfinished Child. Here's part two:

As the parent of typically-developing children, what prompted you to write the book? Do you see any parallels ...

Over the past month, I have had the privilege of corresponding with Theresa Shea, author of The Unfinished Child, a novel about two families whose lives are affected by Down syndrome. In one narrative, set in the mid 1940s, Margaret gives birth to Carolyn, and her doctor convinces her to send Carolyn ...

As I mentioned in a post last week, I've been reading My Bright Abyss by Christian Wiman, and I could (and might) write a post that jumps off from every chapter it includes. (If you get nothing else from this post, get this–if you like thoughtful, beautifully-crafted writing about art or beauty or faith ...

Every so often it seems right to remind myself and those of you who read this blog that it is a place that is loosely ordered, a set of posts that should hold together, even if only by a single thread. Yes, I write about faith and family and disability, with some cultural commentary and books I love ...

Somewhere out there in the blogosphere, there's a list of rules about how to be a good blogger. I break many of them. My posts are often too long and don't have enough images in them (and never videos) and they aren't controversial enough or they're controversial about the wrong things and I go through ...

Last spring, I was asked to contribute an essay to a new anthology of Christian women writers called Talking Taboo: American Christian Women Get Frank About Faith. I am honored to join the ranks of a host of women from a wide array of church backgrounds to discuss topics that have divided us or gone ...

Today's guest post is from Sarah Dunning Park. I had the privilege of receiving a review copy of her book a while back, and after I read it, I wrote: "Sarah Dunning Park has given parents of young children a great gift in this book. She has taken the quotidian life of laundry and minivans and squabbling ...

So I feel as though I am standing next to a conveyer belt and lovely, interesting items are flying past me all day long. And I'm supposed to grab one and hang on to them, but I can't. Sometimes I'm indecisive–is this one really more interesting than that one? I can only grab one, and what if the next ...

"Though something in my gut told me not to click on the headline, curiosity trumped virtue. I have always been wildly curious about multiple births and other birthing anomalies, and the headline promising a two-headed baby could simply not be ignored. With a single click I was staring at a thick, healthy ...

My husband and I sat across from one another at our small table, eating lunch. He ate his salmon-and-mayo on crisp sourdough bread while I picked at tiny piles of salmon atop a few unremarkable crackers.

Tim stopped, noticing that, once again, I wasn't really eating.

"Rachel, if you don't eat, it will ...

Rachel Marie Stone, author of the newly released Eat With Joy (Intervarsity Press), has reviewed my new ebook What Every Woman Needs to Know About Prenatal Testing. She writes:

What Every Woman Needs to Know About Prenatal Testing deserves to be read widely and carefully for many reasons, not least because ...

So during one of those restless nights last week in which I wish I had been praying (see last week's post, My Kids Keep Teaching Me How to Pray) but was actually reading stuff on my phone, I came across a number of articles you might like:

On love and grace and pain from poet Christian Wiman: Mortify ...

I am terrible at hawking my wares, but this really is a good offer. For one day only, today, January 24th, A Good and Perfect Gift (a spiritual memoir about coming to recognize our daughter Penny for who she is, a gift) is available for free as an ebook (if you are ordering within the United States). ...

I've been reading Frederick Beuchner's Now and Then: A Memoir of Vocation. It's a short book that details Buechner's transition from college to teaching to Union seminary to chaplaincy and then to full time writing. As someone who shares Beuchner's faith and who also lives on a boarding school campus ...

Spoiler alert for all my friends who were English majors in college: I'm buying you Karen Swallow Prior's Booked: Literature in the Soul of Me for Christmas this year. Karen is a fellow contributor to her.meneutics, the Christianity Today women's blog, and she is also the head of the English department ...

Last week, I received the exciting news that A Good and Perfect Gift will be (someday–I'll keep you posted on when...) turned into an audiobook on Audible.

Also last week, a friend posted on Facebook, "When I teach I feel His pleasure." He was referencing Eric Liddell, the Olympic runner immortalized ...

Lovely post by Micah Boyett on remembering the saints: Jesus in Real Life: Halloween and Death and Celebrating the Saints

And a really thought-provoking and encouraging essay about the way our very small and daily choices make a profound difference in our lives, read Kate Harris' D'Souza, Undset, and ...

I don't usually write about writing, but I am a member of the Redbud Writer's Guild, and I submitted a post for their blog, which is all about writing. Here's the beginning, with a link to the Redbud blog, where you'll find countless other posts about writing if you're so inclined...

About ten years ...

Meriah Nichols, who blogs at With a Little Moxie, recently posted a joint interview with George Estreich, author of The Shape of the Eye, and yours truly. She asked us both ten questions, including whether we would change anything about our books if we could. I answered:

There's one passage that I often ...