Guest post: How ‘Grace Grows’ got its title by Shelle Sumners
26 Feb
Today the brilliant Grace Grows blog tour is stopping off at One More Page with a guest post from author Shelle Sumners. Grace Grows is Shelle’s debut novel and is a gorgeous love story which has a companion soundtrack of wonderful original songs that appear in the story, written and performed by her husband, singer-songwriter and Broadway actor Lee Morgan. Shelle lives and writes in Bucks County, Pennsylvania and I’m delighted to welcome her to One More Page today.
Hello, I’m glad to be here!
When it came time to give my novel a title, I brainstormed and made a list of several ideas that were cute, but seemed too slight for the scope of this story. Profound, life-changing things happen to my character Grace Barnum. I wanted the title to convey that. I wanted it to be more macro than micro.
So: Grace Grows.
The word grace does double duty. It is, of course, Grace’s name (which, coupled with the circus-tinged surname Barnum, hints at elegant chaos). “Wow. Grace grows,” Grace’s friend Peg observes, about three-quarters of the way through the story. And Grace, with a lot of stumbling along the way, has indeed changed and grown. But grace also refers to the intangible, life-enhancing thing that happens to us when we deeply connect with someone, as Grace does with Tyler Wilkie. There is grace in the compassionate understanding and forgiveness she develops for her flawed, gifted father, and her tough, tightly-wound mother. Through struggle and love, both Grace and grace grow.
Having said all of that, Grace Grows is the name that I came up with from my omniscient, birds-eye, authorly point of view. But this is Grace Barnum’s memoir, and she calls it:
HOW TYLER WILKIE WRECKED MY LIFE
and what I thought I’d do about it
That works, too.
Thank you Shelle!
Grace Grows is published on 1st March by Allen & Unwin. Please stop by again later this week for my review of Grace Grows and please check out the other stops on the tour (listed at the right of this page).
You can find out more about Grace Grows and Shelle Sumners at:
www.facebook.com/ShelleSumners
http://pinterest.com/shellesumners/my-novel-grace-grows/
http://pinterest.com/shellesumners/makes-me-think-of-grace-and-ty/
www.youtube.com/GraceGrowsNovel
Twitter: @ShelleSumners
