Karina Lumbert Fabian was born into the Catholic faith, but truly grew to love it as an adult. As a busy mother of four, she finds some of her strongest encounters with God’s love happen in the ordinary events of the day-to-day. Karina started her writing career with diocesan newspapers but ahs settled into writing fun-filled fantasy and science fiction that nonetheless incorporates the principles of faith-filled living. Check out her website and her blog.
Karina is here with us today to talk about her new book she co-authored with her father, Deacon Steve Lumbert, Why God Matters.
Q. Thank you for this interview, Karina. I understand you wrote this book with your father? Whose idea was it and how was it to work with someone so close to you?
Thanks for hosting me as we tour Why God Matters: How to Recognize Him in Daily Life. It was my idea to invite my dad, Deacon Steve Lumbert to write this book with me. Tribute was looking for a Catholic writer to create a quick book of short personal stories of faith, along with some life lessons and quotes for meditation. I'd written such things before, but I felt my point of view--that of a wife and mother--was somewhat limited for the audience I think Tribute wanted to reach.
The issue came back to me during Mass and the Holy Spirit hit me with an epiphany: My father was a deacon in the Church. He had hundreds of stories and life lessons, plus a wonderful knowledge of Scripture. Duh! Plus, wouldn't it be wonderful to have a father-daughter project?
We've worked together before on different things, like building the basement in my home inVirginia, but never on an intellectual/spiritual/emotional project like this. We had a lot of fun working on it together, and it brought us closer, which was one of my ulterior motives. I've not lived near my family for eight years, and it seems our phone calls and IMs are all about the laundry list of things we do in our day. Dad and I shared memories and aspects of our faith lives, and taught each other as well. I've been truly blessed by this book.
Q. Did you outline before you wrote your book or just went with the flow?
Guess you could say a little of both. Tribute provided us with the structure they wanted: quote, story, Scripture (and we added Catechism), and we decided to alternate between Dad's stories and mine. After that, though, we really let the Spirit take over and guide us.
Q. What kind of research did you do before putting this book together?
Before? None, really, unless you count walks down memory lane. As we wrote it, however, we delved into Scripture, famous quotes and the Catechism of the Catholic Church to support our stories. I especially enjoyed seeing how the Catechism didn't just apply to theoretical spiritual knowledge but the real concrete events of daily life.
Q. Can you tell us if you interviewed people for this book and can you give us an example of who?
No interviews. The stories are all my father's and mine. I do admit to asking my dad a lot of questions, though, as we worked on giving his stories more focus. That was a lot of fun, because sometimes I got to hear the details about events I only knew about in general terms. It could be tough, too, as he had to relive events that happened decades ago, like how it felt to confront an armed criminal and miss death by a miracle. For a story like that, "Talk about scared!" doesn't cut it.
Q. Did you get endorsements for your book prior to publication and can you tell us how you went about getting them?
It was a combined effort of us and the publisher. They already had people in mind for endorsements, and my father asked a couple of good friends he knew through his work in the Church and I a few folks I knew through my work with the Catholic Writers Guild. It was pretty easy in this case.
