We wrap up this year’s Holiday Author Blog series with Terah Shelton Harris, whose latest work of fiction, WHERE THE WILDFLOWERS GROW, releases on February 17th. This poignant story of survival and redemption questions what it means to stop existing and start living. In 2023, Terah gave her friend a copy of her debut novel, ONE SUMMER IN SAVANNAH. Read on to find out why she considers it to be the best book she has ever gifted.
As a former librarian, I gift books all the time. Where’s the story in one friend gifting a book to another friend? But in 2023, I was able to gift my friend a copy of my first novel, ONE SUMMER IN SAVANNAH. And it allowed me to gift her more than just a book.
It started several years ago, when I shared with my friend that I wanted to write a book about forgiveness. Months prior, after a lack of interest from publishers and agents, I had shelved my first manuscript and vowed never to write again.
But that’s not the way life works, especially when you’re called to do something. I’ve fumbled through so many aspects of my life, questioning decision after decision. But the one decision I’ve never questioned was my calling to be a writer. I’ve always known that’s what I was supposed to do. And you can’t make that feeling go away because you tell it to.
Slowly, that itch returned. Instead of ignoring it, I leaned in and opened my heart and mind to the idea of writing another book. This time, I would wait for the inspiration to hit.
That inspiration came after the 2015 Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church shooting in Charleston, South Carolina. After the parishioners fed him and prayed for him, a man shot and killed nine of them. Days after that terrible tragedy, before they buried their loved ones, some of the survivors and relatives of those killed walked into a South Carolina courtroom and forgave the murderer. At the moment, I realized I knew nothing about forgiveness and decided to explore that by writing a book that challenged readers on the definition of forgiveness and what it truly means to forgive.
I shared this with my friend, telling her that I had a theme but not a plot. She turned to me and said, “I have a story for you.” She told me something about her that I never knew: that she conceived a child following a sexual assault. At the end of her story, she said, “And I practice the act of forgiveness every day.” With those words, I knew I had my story. That story became ONE SUMMER IN SAVANNAH.
Two years later, just before Christmas, with tears in my eyes, I gifted her a copy of the book she inspired me to write. I was able to gift her story. We cried over the book, proud I had gotten published. More importantly, we cried that not only was she finally able to tell her story, but that so many readers had (and continue to have) such a wonderful response to it.
It is by far the best book I have ever gifted.
