The Nature of People

This months wonderful topic is how nature plays into our writing. I've been looking forward to this for so long, waiting for my day because nature in my fiction weighs in loud is remarkable and redemptive ways. Lightning crash, thunder roar, hurricanes abounding. From moonlit magical nights to breathless sunrise the good Earth plays itself out full of Glory.

But then I realized my most recent offering has been one of a very, different. type. The book I never meant to write. A non-fiction memoir that surrounds itself in nature of another kind - the human heart. In December of 2008 I had the strangest idea for a resolution - to say a silent prayer for a stranger I passed in life every day for the coming year. A different stranger each day.
2009 revealed a landscape and side of nature that I had never dreamed would be something that I would capture by putting pen to page. I met the lonely, the hungry, the famous, the broken, and the beautiful - all thirsty for a touch from a stranger that surprised me day after continuing day.

What I discovered was that the nature of the world is that it seems to be so dry, so thirsty for a good word, for a prayer , for a stranger's touch that time and time again my whispered resolution brought a smile, a respite, and a story.

The stories of these short but amazingly, meaningful and lasting encounters, and of how they affected my life are captured in Praying for Strangers: An Adventure of the Human Spirit which just debuted Tuesday. As such, I am currently on the road reading, speaking, and discussing how this ongoing adventure has continued to play such a major role in my life. I completed the resolution at the end of 2009. But I never stopped praying for strangers. It's two years, and four months later, and the adventure continues.


Thank you for visiting the new Praying for Strangers website, and sharing with friends. It continues to be an honor to be here at A Good Blog is Hard to Find, to have the privilege to write the stories that find us, and to be in your good company.

River Jordan is a critically acclaimed novelist and playwright. Her fourth novel, The Miracle of Mercy Land, a southern mystical work set in 1938 features a protagonist full of moxie and a ‘backbone of worthy’in this suspenseful story about love, mystery, and the choices we make. Jordan’s first non-fiction
narrative, Praying for Strangers, An Adventure of the Human Spirit arrived from Penguin/Berkley in Hardcover April 5, 2011. She speaks around the country on the “Power of Story,” and produces andhosts the radio program, Clearstory on 107.1 FM from Nashville, TN where she makes her home.