Six Questions with Emily Wierenga

Next in this series of wow women bloggers, is the beautifully poetic Emily Wierenga from Imperfect Prose. She is an author who writes poignantly, her words raw, honest, open, and always lyrical. You can find out more about Emily at her website, http://www.emilywierenga.com.

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1. Describe yourself in three words.
creative, spiritual, compassionate

2. What is the best thing about being you right now?
Being a mother to two beautiful boys all limbs and smiles and jolly jumping their way into their father’s and my hearts. This, combined with writing from home, and being married to a man who wants to spend his free time hanging out with me.

3. Where do you find your inspiration?
From the two little faces that greet me every morning, and the one I kiss before falling asleep at night, and from the God I see etched in every smile line and laugh-groove, the God who falls in the snow outside my window and crackles in my woodstove and tells me I’m special when my reflection shows me afraid and so very small.

4. How have you evolved as a writer?
My writing has evolved alongside my paintings, both going places I didn’t know existed. I have always been a poet, but this poet is finding herself in the wood-grains of every-day life and learning, with the help of Anne Lamott and Madeleine L’Engle and Frank McCourt and Jeanette Walls, to make life a sonnet and a prayer.


5. What smells remind you of your childhood?
Clothesline-dried sheets, Jergen’s lotion (from my mother’s hands), homemade bread, wood smoke (campfires and wood-stove), Ivory soap.

6. What books do you keep going back to again and again?
The Glass Castle (Jeannette Walls), ‘Tis (Frank McCourt), Lullabies for Little Criminals (Heather O’Neill), Walking on Water: Reflections on Art and Faith(Madeleine L'Engle), The Kite Runner (Khaled Husseini), Bird by Bird (Anne Lamott).

Red Canoe - painting by Emily

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Thanks so much Emily for sharing with us some of your thoughts and photos!