Interview with Ann Gabhart

Ann H. Gabhart is the author of The Blessed and of Angel Sister, The Outsider, The Believer, The Seeker among others.

Interview by Carrie Fancett Pagels

I met Ann through ACFW and Laura Frantz, a mutual friend.

Ann, welcome to Overcoming Through Time.  Would you share either the most difficult thing in your life you have had to overcome, with God’s help, or the most tragic situation or circumstance one of your characters has had to get past?

I have lived a blessed life, but even in the most blessed life, there are tragedies and hard times. When I was a young married woman expecting my first child at the much too young age of seventeen, my aunt who was more like a very dear grandmother to me, killed herself. She suffered from chronic depression and the doctors had suggested shock treatments. She couldn’t face that possibility and so she ended her life. I think suicide has to be the hardest death to grieve. And I did grieve deeply for months. Even now more than forty years later, I feel a great sadness when I think of how she died. I can’t keep from thinking I might have done something to help my aunt out of that dark valley, but death is final. That hard path gave me a great appreciation of how precious is the gift of life.

As to my characters, the poor things, I put them in major fixes in every book.

What is your favorite bible verse and why?

It is so hard to pick one verse that I like more than others. I have at times answered this question by picking the verse John 21:25 as a favorite just because of how it boggles my imagination to consider all those things Jesus did that John didn’t write down. John said “And there are also many other things that Jesus did, which if they were written one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.” (NKJ)

But I also love Mark 9:23 where Jesus says, “All things are possible to those who believe.”

So many beautiful, inspiring, wise Bible verses.

Disability friendliness:

Is this latest release available in audio format or do you have any other works available on audio? 

The Shaker books (The Outsider, The Believer, The Seeker, The Blessed) and Angel Sister are available in large print and also as audio books. And by the way, the reader on Angel Sister does a fantastic job. (CFP: Thanks and I have downloaded two books from audible.com!)  

Those books as well as my Hollyhill books (The Scent of Lilacs, Orchard of Hope and Summer of Joy) are available on Kindle or Nook or other e-readers. My only non-fiction book, Angels at the Crossroads, is also available as an e-book.

What has been the most important thing you hope your readers will get from your books and why?

Encouragement. I think we all need to be encouraged and lifted up. When people read my books and see how my characters overcome problems with the help of the Lord, then I hope they will be encouraged to trust the Lord to help them in their daily problems too.

As you researched your books, did you learn anything that particularly touched your heart?

I have researched so many different time periods for my books. Of course I had to do a lot of research into how the Shakers lived, but I think the research I’ve done on wars has opened my eyes to the courage of the average man and woman as they went to war and faced tremendous hardships. But perhaps most touching was the personal research into my mother’s background that became the background for my novel, Angel Sister, set during the years of the Great Depression. Walking down memory lane with her brought her childhood to life for me.

In this latest work, do you have any topics useful for bibliotherapy, or therapeutic influence through 

reading about a disorder or situation?

 Angel Sister deals with alcoholism and Post Traumatic Stress from WW I. All my books have issues that the characters must overcome - often times family relationship issues. I also take my characters to war in many of my books and so the characters are faced with life and death decisions and how they respond to those. In The Blessed, Isaac considers suicide due to his grief over the death of his wife. 


CFP: Thanks so much, Ann.  And I am betting that your books all do have themes that I could consider useful for bibliotherapy (which I always note on my own reviews). Suicide is a tragedy and something that leaves behind a mark on loved ones' hearts.  When I was in grad school, research showed electroconvulsive therapy to only be effective because the patients were either so traumatized by it that they would never want it again or were so impaired by it that it could not be.  Was I ever disappointed and outraged to hear that psychiatrists are using this again, supposedly only for patients with severe entrenched depression.  We know how that usually works out, though...  And some of this being done in our own VA Hospitals. Sorry, but that pushed one of my buttons to read about Ann's poor auntie.  

Giveaway:  Leave a comment for a chance to win one of Ann's books.  We have a review on Wednesday by Diana Flowers, also.  Giveaway will be done next weekend.