Diane K 2017 Headshot

Getting to Know...

Diane Karchner

Website

dianekarchner.com

Published Work

Books to be Published

Currently working on a creative nonfiction anthology of obscure Bible characters (title TBD); expected publication November 2019.

Favorite Non-Profit

I have two of them:

International Justice Mission

Every day, countless people are sold into slavery, as slave owners make a profit off their misery.

International Justice Mission is a global organization with a plan to eliminate the slave trade everywhere.

Big Dent

BigDent is the microfinance program of CMF International, a Christian organization established in 1949 with holistic ministries in 17 countries and the US. We are compelled to transform lives and communities worldwide through church planting, work among the urban poor, international campus ministry, as well as working in creative-access countries through development, education, and business.

Favorite Author

C.S. Lewis, for now, but it changes from time to time.

Favorite Movie

Shadowlands, the 1993 movie about C.S. Lewis, so this often changes with the author change.

Personal Questions

Tell us about yourself - your family, marital status, your background... the basics.

Married for 47 years (I got married right after I started walking – it’s complicated!), two adult kids, and four incredibly perfect grands. I was raised in the Presbyterian Church, but met Jesus when I was 25. Since that time, I have been a faithful follower, a meandering critic, an obstinate questioner and a humble servant. Out of order, but a recurrent mixed bag of repetitiveness in a faith walk that has taught me, more than anything, that God loves me so very deeply.

Where is your favorite vacation spot? Why?

Without question, the Outer Banks of North Carolina, although Sedona, Arizona has a piece of my heart whenever I think of the sun setting against those red rocks!

What is your #1 bucket list dream?

To see every major league ballpark in the US. Not interested in Toronto, but if the Blue Jays ever come up from the proverbial basement to even get in the playoffs, I may add to the bottom of the bucket.

Tell the readers one thing you would like them to know about you and/or your writing.

I cannot not write. I may never afford to have an editor to help me perfect my art-as-words; I may never have a publishing giant (or mini) named on the flipside of my cover page; but, I will always and forever put words on pages and pages, whether ever read by another’s eye. God pushes me to do it, and what can I do but obey?

What would you want your 5-word epitaph to be?

She wrote Christ’s love daily.

Faith Questions

Briefly, tell us about your decision to become a believer - where, when, how?

My husband and I were mentored while in a multi-level marketing business by two believers named Ernie and Peg. They never really mentioned their faith much, but they set an example of peace and love that was hard to miss. We “went forward” for an altar call at a Sunday service at one of the business weekends and, since then, have never doubted that Jesus took hold of us at that obscure and weird meeting. We believe God was working upstream to get us there, at that moment, with those business mentors, for that reason. To find Him.

What is your favorite story from the Bible, the one that inspires, moves you?

In the New Testament, Priscilla sets my heart aflutter. There is not much said about her. But the fact that her name is mentioned at all, in a time when women were so little respected, makes her seem so courageous, and so sold-out to her faith. She and Aquilla followed Paul around from Corinth to Ephesus, and then eventually landed in Rome: all places where the early church was challenged, yet grew. And she was there, up inside all of it.

Do you have a life's bible verse? If so, what is it?

I don’t have a verse that has been with me my whole life, but I have verses that come and go, that God has put on my heart and mind that just nag at me. Currently it is Psalm 118:5 ~

I took my anguish to the Lord, and he answered by setting me free.

There is something powerful and magical and peaceful and wondrous about having anguish replaced by freedom, don’t you think?

If you could have a long, leisurely dinner with a person from the Bible, who would it be and why? What would you talk about?

Peter, without hesitation. He is the one who failed and succeeded, who talked out of turn, who walked on the freakin’ water, who denied and repented… I want him to tell me how all that went down. The emotion, the feelings, the joy. Especially of what kind of faith motivated him to step out of that boat!!!!

If you could pick one thing you deeply want the readers to know about God, what would it be?

God loves you. He loves you more than the world ever can or will. So come just as you are, ‘cause that’s the way He wants to hug ya! Just as you are. His creation. His beloved.

What motivated or inspired you to write your books?

With each book, I had a burden to get it out of me before it drove me crazy. I knew it was time when I would find myself writing paragraphs in my head, almost all the time. One time I even pulled over in my car on the way to shop and scribbled down an entire chapter because it was giving me a headache (and I had to be clear minded to shop, right?)!

As a published author, what tips do you have for aspiring authors?

Write. And self-publish, if you have to. Just get it out there. It gets you loose of the fear of rejection. Just write. And then work out the details. Some of those details I can’t help you with. I never submitted to a publisher, never could afford an editor. But I could write words on the screen in front of me. Words that mattered to me, to what I was learning of life, to what told a story.

I spent half my life gripped in fear that no one would want to read what I wrote, so I didn’t write what they would not read. Logical? NO! So when I finally wrote and published it, some people actually read it – every book. Not a lot of readers. Not gonna make it to any list of best sellers. But my goal was, and is, to write only what God was nudging me to write. And, this may sound way-corny, but I know He reads it. And He is tickled to death that I accepted the courage to do it.