Today we sit down to talk with author and Editor Heidi Saxton. Heidi is the Editor for Canticle magazine and an adoptive parent columnist for Catholicmom.com and CatholicExchange.com. She is on a virtual book tour this month to promote her latest release, Behold Your Mother: Mary Stories and Reflections from a Catholic Convert.
Q: Before we get started, please tell us a bit about yourself. How long have you been writing? Who or what inspires you the most?
A: I can date my desire to become a writer back to seventh grade English class when I decided it was more fun to write short stories than diagram sentences. (Mr. Burke was not amused.) So … that would be (shudder) almost thirty years now.
I get inspired all the time through chance encounters with ordinary people. If you ask the right questions, you can almost get an interesting story (since the publication of Behold Your Mother, my favorite question to ask people is, “Have you ever experienced an answer to prayer?”
Q: You’re also a wife and mother. Does your family support your writing career?
A: For this book, my kids were particularly inspirational. My husband Craig and I foster-adopted them, finalizing the adoption in 2005. Christopher is eight, Sarah is six. It’s a good age … old enough to feed me with cute little anecdotes, young enough not to care that I write about them.
My husband Craig is exceptionally supportive. He honestly believes I’m going to write a bestseller someday. He’s hoping for sooner rather than later, since he WOULD like to retire someday! But either way, he’s my biggest fan.
Q: How do you go about finding that perfect balance between your personal life and your writing?
A: (Falls off chair laughing.) Perfect balance? Does ANY mother ever find the perfect balance between her personal and professional life? Even SAHMs I know feel as though they are being pulled between home and church and work and school commitments. It doesn’t stop. If you don’t take care of yourself, that’s when the “Mommy Monster” comes out—which is the subject of my other book, Raising Up Mommy.
Having said that, there are some things that we need to do to stay strong—physically, emotionally, spiritually, and every other way. One way is to find good mentors, women whose parenting styles you admire. My younger sister is one of mine. The Blessed Virgin Mary is also one (though she was the perfect woman, and had one perfect Son … way out of my league on both counts). The other key ingredient is prayer. Time and time again, the best moms I talk to (the ones with multiple kids who still manage to maintain the semblance of sanity if not actual serenity) have a regular time of “soul maintenance.”
When Craig and I first brought our kids home in 2002 (initially we had three kids, including their older sister), I learned firsthand how important a regular time of prayer is. I was being awakened at all hours of the day and night and seldom had privacy enough for a shower let alone “tea with God.” So I fit it in when I could. A Taize tape here. A decade of the rosary there, along with a, “Help me, Mary … I’m gonna BLOW.”
It’s amazing how quickly heaven hears and responds, once that regular connection is established.
Q: How many books have you written? Do you have any favorites?
A: Including ghosted and co-written projects, I’ve done eight books. My favorite is the one I’m working on now (still in search of a publisher), on the heart of the adoptive parent. Most people when they’re focused on adoption are so busy looking for the child that they seldom stop to consider how the experience is going to change THEM. But I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that adoption does change you … hopefully, for the better.
