Called to Write: An Interview with Jan Karon
Dale Brown, Professor of English
Radix
Volume 30:4

Radix: You feel called by God to be a writer?

Karon: I just couldn’t stand any longer to throw my life away. I knew that my life belonged to him, so I prayed for two years in a very concentrated way. Not sort of round robin, as many of us pray, but totally focused. "Lord, if you want me to write books, you’re going to have to show me how. I am scared to death. I have a nice home, I have a nice car, I have an income, and I can pay my bills. I don’t know how to do the writing thing." And at the end of those two years, he did speak to my heart. I can’t say how. But he said, "Go, already. Go, get out there, I’m with you, and you’re going to be fine." So I decided to write a book I wanted to read. I hoped to find a small vein of readers who would share my sense of things. I remember visiting a library and opening up a then-popular bestseller. On the first page there’s shocking language, and then somebody’s having sex on the table on the second page. I don’t need that. I didn’t want it in my life. Yes, people have sex on tables, I suppose, but I don’t want to read about it. I had to be careful about which shelves I went to in the library. If I used a shelf where the authors were long dead, I could read those books. If they were living, I couldn’t read them. I said, I’m just going to write a book I want to read. If nobody wants to read it, I can’t help it. Lord, if you brought me this far, it’s your problem.

Radix: So when God calls you there’s still that desert?

Karon: Oh, yes. Has to be.

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