Althouse-Wood, Jill 1969–

PERSONAL:

Born February 21, 1969, in Lititz, PA; daughter of David (a literature teacher and basketball coach) and Mary Althouse (a teacher); married Mark Wood; children: one son, one daughter. Education: University of Delaware, B.F.A.

ADDRESSES:

Home— Reinholds, PA. Agent— Jennie Dunham, Dunham Literary, Inc., 156 5th Ave., Ste. 625, New York, NY 10010-7002. E-mail— [email protected].

CAREER:

Writer, novelist, artist, fabric designer, advocate, and educator. Worked for fifteen years as a fabric designer for a Pennsylvania jacquard mill. Facilitator for writing workshops and conferences. Founder of Web site "Mortalmom.com."

WRITINGS:

Summers at Blue Lake(novel), Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill (Chapel Hill, NC), 2007.

Also author of the blog "Mortal Mom Writes …."

SIDELIGHTS:

Pennsylvania native Jill Althouse-Wood is a writer and artist with a longtime interest in clothing and fabric design. The daughter of two teachers, Althouse-Wood developed an early interest in reading and writing, but gravitated more toward art as a youngster, she noted on her home page. Majoring in fine art at the University of Delaware, Althouse-Wood earned her B.F.A., and soon after landed a job as a fabric designer for a jacquard mill. She held this position for fifteen years. However, "despite having a job that directly related to her degree, Jill felt little creative satisfaction," she further wrote on her home page. With a growing family that included a daughter and a son, Althouse-Wood struggled to balance her creative urges with practical matters of daily life. Eventually her interests drifted toward writing, a more streamlined form of expression that fit more conveniently into her lifestyle. As her writing work became more focused on creating a novel, she concurrently became involved in conducting workshops and in various forms of advocacy. She founded the Web site MortalMom.com, a support site for busy mothers trying to balance creative endeavors with family and work commitments. She became involved in social causes, including domestic violence awareness and art in public education. She worked on innovative techniques for teaching writing with the assistance of art and journal writing. She also continued to paint, culminating in a gallery show in 2007. Throughout, she retained her own involvement with writing.

The result of Althouse-Wood's efforts is her debut novel,Summers at Blue Lake. The book's genesis was a rocky one, marked by more than thirty rejection letters, fifty revisions after acceptance, and the passage of more than six years, but Althouse-Wood remained dedicated and persistent. The book itself took only two months to write, noted Beth C. Chernov in the Lititz Record-Express. "It came out so fast I almost seemed unnecessary in the process," Althouse-Wood remarked to Chernov. The protagonist of the novel, Barbara Jean "BJ" Ellington has broken up with her lawyer husband Bryce after he admitted to an affair. In the wake of her divorce, BJ returns to the small lakeside Pennsylvania town where she grew up. There, she and her five-year-old son Sam take up residence in the house she inherited from her maternal grandmother, Nonna, and her partner, Lena, a lesbian couple who defied conventions about gay parenting in the 1970s and 80s. Soon, BJ has rekindled an old relationship with Nonna's son Travis, whom she had a serious crush on as a teenager. Her life is complicated by an attempt at reconciliation from Bryce, who arrives to visit Sam. Then, the discovery of an unsent letter among her grandmother's effects reveals a shocking secret about BJ's connection to Travis that will raise profound questions about her attraction to him. In this "engaging novel," Althouse-Wood "gives BJ a fresh, honest voice; and beautifully develops the relationship between the grandmothers," noted Booklist reviewer Carolyn Kubisz. Karen Core, writing in Library Journal, observed that "this fascinating story" is "sure to please readers of women's fiction."

Althouse-Wood told CA: "Reading first got me interested in writing. I loved the books I was reading and I wanted to dialog with the writers who meant so much to me. It seemed the way to do that was to write a book.

"I am a visual artist, so I think I am particularly inspired by what I see. I try to look through the world with the lens that was given to me through my art training. Question everything. Take nothing at face value. Look deeper.

"This is my process—WRITE. Let it flow and don't interrupt the flow. I don't research first. I research after the fact. Sometimes I have to rewrite after my findings, but not everything is planned out. I let the story carry me. I listen to my characters. I don't write all day. I paint. I walk or take a jog. Writing all day would go stale for me, but I am always thinking. Walking or painting with my thoughts really helps the process.

"I am fascinated by the reverence that people hold for writers and the written word. To me it is such a natural process that I don't understand the awe. Many people have books they want to write. If you take the time to write an e-mail every day, you have the time to write your story.

"I hope for connection with the world on a larger level. I love to hear from readers. I started this book in order to have a conversation with my favorite authors. Now I am, myself, having a conversation with my readers."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, June 1, 2007, Carolyn Kubisz, review of Summers at Blue Lake, p. 42.

Kirkus Reviews, June 15, 2007, review of Summers at Blue Lake.

Library Journal, August 1, 2007, Karen Core, review of Summers at Blue Lake, p. 62.

Lititz Record Express, August 9, 2007, Beth C. Chernov, "Persistence Pays Off for Local Author, Mother of Two," profile of Jill Althouse-Wood.

Publishers Weekly, May 14, 2007, review of Summers at Blue Lake, p. 30.

Reading Eagle, July 15, 2007, Stephanie Caltagirone, "Inspired by ‘Oprah,’" profile of Jill Althouse-Wood.

Voice of Youth Advocates, August, 2007, Barbara Johnson, review of Summers at Blue Lake, p. 233.

ONLINE

Jill Althouse-Wood Home Page,http://www.jillalthousewood.com (November 27, 2007).

Lancaster Online,http://local.lancasteronline.com/ (August 5, 2007), Jo-Ann Greene, "Algonquin Releases Reamstown Woman's Novel of Family Secrets," review of Summers at Blue Lake.