Since I’m an extroverted, enthusiastic person, it’s like making a gold strike or discovering a new planet. I’m also given to hyperbole. It makes me want to show it to everyone in the office.

HOW MANY OTHER PEOPLE AT ABINGDON HAVE TO WANT THE BOOK, TOO?

Initially, I present the project to six other people who need to be convinced of its merits. Sitting on the fiction team are colleagues from editorial, marketing, finance, sales, and retail. Once they’re sold on the author and idea, a business plan is formulated, and then the project is presented to our executive steering team.

IS THERE ANYTHING YOU HAVEN’T SEEN YET THAT YOU’RE LOOKING FOR?

I have more than 150 proposals waiting for me to read next month, so after I read those, I’ll let you know.

WHAT CHANGES DO YOU SEE HAPPENING WITH THE FICTION LINE IN THE NEXT FIVE YEARS?

Onward and upward! Abingdon Press will launch its first fiction line this Fall, and for the first two or three years we’ll continue to build a list of eighteen to twenty titles per year. Later, our success will allow us to take calculated risks in new genres perhaps.

WHAT MAKES THE NEW FICTION LINE DIFFERENT THAN OTHER INSPIRATIONAL PUBLISHERS’ LINES?

One distinctive of our fiction is that our authors explore the gray areas of life—those situations that all of us may face…situations that may have no clear-cut solutions. There is more to our faith walk than our initial conversion experience. Rather than evangelize the reader, we want to engage their hearts and minds in a dialogue about an authentic faith in Jesus Christ, without preaching at them or pounding them over the head with doctrine or trying to convert them by the end of the book. Our novels illuminate the human condition and the expression of God’s love and grace.

WHAT DO YOU WANT PEOPLE TO KNOW ABOUT THE FICTION LINE?

That we’ve acquired some fabulous new Christian voices who have great stories to tell. When you finish an Abingdon Press novel, we want you to feel inspired and uplifted.

(Since it’s my Web site!) WHAT ATTRACTS YOU ABOUT MY WRITING?

Sandie, you make me laugh, and that’s a good thing. You have a breezy, humorous style that makes me identify and fall in love with your characters and sweeps me up in their predicaments.