Writer Jane Kirkpatrick brings unique style to Forest Grove

Author reads from her books and raises funds for women’s group

By By Mary Jane Nordgren

The Forest Grove News-Times, Nov 18, 2009

Jane Kirkpatrick

Courtesy photo / News-Times

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Whispers of hope within the moans of harsh winds – that’s what Jane Kirkpatrick’s characters, and readers, hear inside her novels.

Kirkpatrick will be speaking at 2 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 21 at the First Christian Church, 2231 19th Ave. in Forest Grove.

Thousands of women have been inspired to deal with their own circumstances through understanding the universal nature of trials all humans face regardless of generation, and Kirkpatrick has been a mentor to many.

Heroines in her books stumble, flounder, snarl – often at the wrong target. They make choices based on what they know, incomplete or distorted by their longings and their perspectives. And, just as we do, suffer the consequences of their choices.

This award-winning writer is relentless in details that bring her characters and their worlds to life.

Kirkpatrick has read not only the history books, but also the bills of lading of the stores where her characters traded, the tax rolls that burdened them, plus their letters and diaries. She knows what is happening in the time and political climate of her characters, and she touches us with the feel of the heroine’s thimble made of bone as it slips on her finger. We sit on the milking stool, tending to the cow, in the old German tradition, from the back and mindful of the tail that swishes in the gutter that it doesn’t then dip into the bucket of milk and ruin a morning’s work.

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