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3 Lessons and 2 Tips from Leah Darrow

3 Lessons and 2 Tips is a series of interviews in which some of my favorite people (and probably some of yours) share three lessons they’ve learned by being married, plus two tips for single people.

This edition features Leah Darrow, a wife, mom, author, speaker, fashionista and broadway musical enthusiast I first met when she and her husband Ricky and I took a class together last summer at the Theology of the Body Institute.

Leah enjoys engaging culture from a Catholic perspective and challenges people to reclaim love and beauty from a society that has distorted both. She hopes to one day swim with orcas or catch the first sighting of bigfoot, whichever comes first. Continue reading “3 Lessons and 2 Tips from Leah Darrow”

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Book launch party pictures!

I owe a debt of gratitude to the fabulous family, friends, and folks I had never met who showed up to celebrate the release of my book Chastity Is For Lovers at two launch parties over the weekend. I also owe my body a lot of sleep.

So while I catch up (and prepare for my trip to New York), enjoy the following photos (just a handful out of more than a hundred!) from both parties (and the picture above, of me reading an excerpt of the book at Saturday’s party). Continue reading “Book launch party pictures!”

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Thoughts on becoming an author.

my and my book

The moment I learned I would become an author is vivid, even now, almost two years later:

11:12 a.m. on February 28, 2013.

I sat beneath the bright bulbs of the chandelier that floats over the kitchen table and grabbed my phone while a notification buzzed: an email from Patrick, the editor who that morning, had presented my book proposal to his colleagues at Ave Maria Press.

“So, I was wondering,” he had written. “How would you like to write a book for us? :)” Continue reading “Thoughts on becoming an author.”

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Sincere thanks!

booksAs I type, I am just steps away from two-hundred copies of the book that I wrote. The two parties* I’ll host to kick-start that book’s launch are just days away.

If you’re in or near Tampa, I so hope I’ll see you at one of them. But even if you aren’t, please read on:

Amid all the prep for those parties, it is necessary to pause to express my gratitude to several people — some whose names you’ll know and others whose names you should know. It is with gratitude that I offer these sincere thanks:

Thank you, thank you, thank you to each of the below listed people, businesses, and ministries, for believing my work is important and for expressing that by supporting my book’s launch as sponsors: Continue reading “Sincere thanks!”

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PRIESTS ARE COOL! | Fr. Mike Schmitz edition.

[callout]This post is part of a monthly series called PRIESTS & NUNS ARE COOL! in which I interview a priest or a nun about his or her vocation — and about how adults who haven’t discerned a vocation yet can discover their own. This edition features Fr. Mike Schmitz, the chaplain for Newman Catholic Campus Ministries at the University of Minnesota Duluth and the Director of the Office of Youth Ministry for the Diocese of Duluth.[/callout]

father mike

I almost met Fr. Mike Schmitz once. He was a keynote speaker where I was a chaperone: at a Steubenville ATL youth conference.

Our paths crossed but neither my schedule nor his provided the time for us to chat, which, let’s face it, was a bummer. But Fr. Mike and I have connected since, because the Internet.

Fr. Mike — a killer homilist (my words, not his) who aims to be a better man, priest, friend and relative, and to find new ways to share who Jesus Christ is and to help people encounter Him — is gracious to discuss his vocation for this series, and to tell us how an adult who doesn’t know his or hers yet might discover it: Continue reading “PRIESTS ARE COOL! | Fr. Mike Schmitz edition.”