Buckman, Michelle

PERSONAL:

Born in NY; married; children: five. Education: Received degree in computer science.

ADDRESSES:

Home—South Carolina. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Freelance writer, columnist, and novelist.

MEMBER:

South Carolina Writers Workshop, American Christian Fiction Writers, Society of Newspaper Columnists.

WRITINGS:

A Piece of the Sky: A Novel, RiverOak (Colorado Springs, CO), 2005.

(With A.H. Jackson) Pretty Maids All in a Row, Avalon Books (New York, NY), 2006.

Maggie Come Lately: A Novel, TH1NK (Colorado Springs, CO), 2007.

My Beautiful Disaster: A Novel, TH1NK (Colorado Springs, CO), 2007.

SIDELIGHTS:

Novelist Michelle Buckman writes stories that focus on characters' faith journeys and the ways in which they fail to live up to their own expectations. Her own journey to publication was a long and arduous one. "I always wanted to be a writer," she told an interviewer for the online blog Novel Journey, "but got a degree in computer programming because it was more practical. After my first child was born, I combined the two talents and wrote computer manuals at home. From there, I began freelancing for corporations as well as regional and national publications. All the while, I wrote fiction on the side. I threw away my first three manuscripts. The fourth was a winner (according to my critique group), and sure enough it sold and was published in 2005."

Buckman's first published work, A Piece of the Sky: A Novel, tells the story of Carla, a woman who tries to become pregnant through artificial insemination and donor sperm, when her husband Simon—a Christian—refuses to undergo testing to find out if he shares responsibility for the couple's failure to conceive a child. Carla's insistent quest to conceive a child, however, damages her relationship with her husband, thus destroying the family she is trying to create. A reviewer writing for Internet Bookwatch deemed the novel "very highly recommended reading for all general fiction lovers."

In Pretty Maids All in a Row, Buckman and coauthor A.H. Jackson relate the history of publishing partners Tori Roche and J.B. Kale, and how their experiences on a mystery-party weekend in Oxfordshire lead to the solving of murders from the eighteenth and twentieth centuries. In 1785, twelve nuns were decapitated in an English priory; their leader, the prioress Mary Gant (Tori's ancient ancestress) was never found. It was believed that Gant escaped with a large, valuable diamond. "Tori and Kale make their way through many twists and turns," wrote Ilene Cooper in her Booklist review, "… to try and track a modern-day murderer," while at the same time trying to uncover the two-century-old story of the murdered nuns. "The story is amusing, picturesque, and packed with action, occasionally taking on an Indiana Jones quality," concluded Verna Suit in Mystery Scene. "Pretty Maids All in a Row is an exuberant first novel."

Maggie Come Lately: A Novel and My Beautiful Disaster: A Novel are both young-adult novels that explore the attractions—and pitfalls—of sudden popularity. The protagonist of Maggie Come Lately, sixteen-year-old Maggie is overwhelmed with her duties caring for her father and brothers (her mother committed suicide when Maggie was only four years old). On her birthday, she prays that this year will be different: that she will get the attention and affection she has always longed for, and that she will finally become the center of attention. Sure enough, she becomes the center of attention, but not because of the qualities she hoped to develop. "She gets attention—the creepy kind—from the father of one of Billy's close friends," explained Michele Howe for Teen Reads. "She finds herself in constant angst and conflict when her dad brings home a girlfriend who attempts to take over her position in the family." She also rescues an acquaintance from a combination rape and attempted murder—an action that gives her the publicity she has desired. Torn by the changes in her life, Maggie struggles to come to terms with her circumstances and her faith.

My Beautiful Disaster is the story of Dixie Chambers, whose relationship with Vince, the star of a rising rock band, also puts her faith under considerable stress. "Despite warnings from her family and friends," wrote Teen Reads reviewer Jennifer Crosby, "… Dixie blissfully carries on in her relationship, even though it forces her to sneak out and ditch her duties at school and church. However, life comes to a screeching halt one day when Dixie realizes she is pregnant." Having lost the support of her family, her church, and her friends, how is Dixie to find a way out of her predicament? "Is it possible," asked Leslie L. McKee, writing for the Romantic Times Online, "for Dixie to see life as beautiful and not as a disaster?" Readers, Crosby concluded, will enjoy My Beautiful Disaster's "dramatic and heart-wrenching story."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, May 1, 2006, Ilene Cooper, review of Pretty Maids All in a Row, p. 18.

Internet Bookwatch, April, 2006, review of A Piece of the Sky: A Novel.

Midwest Book Review, April, 2006, review of A Piece of the Sky.

ONLINE

Cowboy Musings,http://www.terryburns.net/ (February 16, 2008), "Introducing Michelle Buckman!"

Michelle Buckman,http://www.michellebuckman.com (February 16, 2008), author profile.

Mystery Scene,http://www.mysteryscenemag.com/ (February 16, 2008), Verna Suit, review of Pretty Maids All in a Row.

Novel Journey,http://noveljourney.blogspot.com/ (February 16, 2008), "Author Interview: Michelle Buckman."

Romantic Times Online,http://www.romantictimes.com/ (February 16, 2008), Leslie L. McKee, review of My Beautiful Disaster: A Novel.

Teen Reads,http://www.teenreads.com/ (February 16, 2008), Jennifer Crosby, review of My Beautiful Disaster; Michele Howe, review of Maggie Come Lately: A Novel.