In a few months we’ll be gearing up for next year’s Frasier Contest. In the meantime, we’d like to celebrate some of the authors that help make it happen. Every Frasier Judge gives several hours of his or her time to give our contestants the best feedback possible. Ann Tatlock is a novelist and children’s book author. Her next book is “Once Beyond a Time”, and it comes out the 8th of December.

Ann, can you give us a little blurb about your book?

After settling into an old house nearly hidden on the side of a mountain, a broken family discovers that their new home is no ordinary place. Can all of time be happening at once? The family can see and speak with people who have lived there in the past, and with those who will live there in the future. They come and go. Are those people from beyond the present time apparitions or real?

It’s 1968, and Sheldon and Meg Crane have just moved their family from suburban Philadelphia to the town of Black Mountain, NC. Sheldon, the father, has resigned in disgrace from the ministry after an affair. He will now sell used cars for his brother-in-law’s auto dealership. Sheldon is burdened by his wife’s unwillingness to forgive and his daughter’s anger over his moving the family to a small town, far from her friends. The oldest son is in Vietnam. The only happy member of the family is his eight-year-old son, Digger. But then, Digger suddenly disappears. Has he been kidnapped, or has he wandered off into the dark forest? How does the “house beyond time” provide the answers, the healing power of forgiveness, and show the loving sovereignty of God?

How did God change you through the course of writing your novel?

Writing this book about time has been a lesson in God’s timelessness and in God’s timing. I began writing this novel 10 years ago, but I wasn’t very far into it when my publisher rejected it as “too paranormal.” I tried to explain that there’s nothing paranormal about the story, but they would have none of it. As far as they were concerned, people were talking to dead people and that meant it dealt with the occult.

First of all, I’m strongly opposed to anything linked to the occult and would never choose to write about it. Second, no character in my story is dead. Each one is very much alive. On top of that, I don’t even believe in ghosts; that is, I don’t believe disembodied souls wander the earth haunting people and places. Nor do I believe that the souls of believers are dead at any rate; rather, they are alive, truly alive in God’s presence. And yes, I also believe in hell, as unpopular as that idea is today. So, in my estimation, the souls of those who have died are in one place or the other, and that place is not here on earth.

As I wrote this book, what I was thinking of and wondering about wasn’t ghosts and haunted houses but rather God’s timelessness. As Revelation 1:8 tells us, “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty” (KJV). Unlike humans who occupy a single point in time, God stretches from start to finish, he is and was and is to come, and therefore he is the Eternal Now. He created time for our use, but he remains outside of it and is unhindered by it. So, I wondered, what if one was able to “fall out of time” and experience what God experiences? That is the premise of my story.

After my original publisher rejected it, I peddled the book everywhere. I took it to ICRS and handed it to editors. I heard nothing in response. Years passed. I went on to write five other books. I got a new agent who said a publisher wanted to know if I had anything as yet unpublished that they might consider. Yes, unpublished and unfinished. I dug out what I had of Once Beyond A Time and sent it to my agent who sent it to the publisher. They said if I finished it, they would take it. I finished it but the acquisitions editor left and the book was dropped.

I thought this book would never be published. But that’s where God’s timing comes in. Eddie Jones started a publishing house and, after reprinting my out-of-print books with good results, asked me if he could publish an original. I once again pulled out Once Beyond A Time and the rest is history. Or not really history so much as yet-to-be-seen. This is God’s time for this book and I have no idea why but I know that God knows why. Because he is already in the future as sure as he was in the past all those years ago when I started writing this story. He has a purpose for everything and, because of his timelessness, I can trust his timing.

So at long last, here it is. Have a good time, and God bless!

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Ann Tatlock is a novelist and children’s book author. Her books have received numerous awards, including the Christy Award, the Midwest Book Award and the Silver Angel Award for Excellence in Media. She also serves as managing editor of Heritage Beacon, the historical fiction imprint of Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas. She lives with her family in Western North Carolina. Please visit her website at www.anntatlock.com.