Meet author Patti Townley-Covert
An award-winning freelance author, Patti Townley-Covert wrote The Windblown Girl: A Memoir about Self, Sexuality, and Social Issues. This inspiring memoir shows how exchanging cultural lies for biblical truths led to peace and stability.
Patti’s written numerous articles for international and national publications. Her award-winning blog is on her website at ptcovert.com.
She’s done the limbo in the Caribbean, gone on a King Crab Safari in the Arctic Circle, and explored Denali on a clear Alaskan day. At home in Southern California, she keeps fit with step aerobics and zumba classes. Patti also loves reading good books on the beach.
Tell us about your newest book.
In The Windblown Girl: A Memoir about Self, Sexuality, and Social Issues, my mother’s and husband’s voices tried to convince me that I was a prude and frigid. So did the “if it feels good do it” zeitgeist of the early 1970s. It was a time of global chaos. Vietnam, my dad missing in action. Watts riots. Sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Trying to discover the truth about myself, I engaged in an illicit love affair with a Norwegian navigator on a cruise ship in the Caribbean. We expected this no-strings attached affair to end after two weeks. But God had other plans (so wild that I could never have made them up), and that intense romantic liaison became a monumental catalyst for my transformational journey.
What inspired you to write your story?
The Windblown Girl, shown on the cover. On the same Caribbean cruise when I met the Norwegian, I discovered this Lladro figurine. Despite life’s fierce winds blowing against her, she stands firm on a Rock with a book behind her back. It took years for me to grasp her significance and how she epitomized my life. This story was more than forty years in the making with many details unfolding over time.
What genre do you focus on.
The Windblown Girl is a memoir that was written using fiction techniques so it reads like a novel. This coming-of-age story has much history and spiritual truth incorporated into it, similar to the Christian historical fiction series I’m working on now.
Why do you write?
I write because I want to expose cultural lies and set forth biblical truth in ways readers can relate to. For almost a decade, I had the honor of working with NASA-level scientists helping them show how the scientific facts support biblical creation more than evolution. Truth shores up faith and changes lives for the better whether set forth in nonfiction or fiction.
What is your work schedule like when you’re writing a book?
It varies depending on what’s going on in my life. I love it when I have a full day with no other plans but writing. However, that’s rare.
What is the hardest part of being an author?
As an author, I wish I could just write. Being a writer involves juggling many different tasks like website development and marketing. Such tasks are often outside of my comfort zone.
What’s the best part of your author’s life?
Ongoing learning and making connections. Whatever I’m writing, whether a devotion, article, or book–for readers to understand the content, I must understand it first. Much of my writing involves social issues because they are a major part of our world. That was true in my memoir and is just as true now. Over the years, I’ve gotten involved with the fight against human trafficking, securing funding for foster care, learning about child and domestic abuse and so much more. It was Covid, George Floyd’s murder, and local soldiers being killed during the withdrawal from Afghanistan that pulled together the pieces of my memoir.
What’s one thing your readers should know about you?
I care deeply about them as individuals. And, I write because the biblical truths I do my best to set forth have brought peace and stability into my life and can do the same for theirs no matter how troubling the chaos in our world.
How have you changed or grown as a writer?
While working with scientists, primarily as an editor, I learned to identify concepts that helped them understand my changes. Over time identifying problems strengthened my writing skills to where I now teach them to others.
What is your favorite pastime?
Conversations with friends over a meal. Or reading a good book.
Do you have other books? We’d love to know.
I’ve co-written two books, In the Red Zone: A Game Plan for How to Share Your Faith with Kent Tucker and Love. Money. Power. A Pastor’s Journey into Reality with John Setser. And I’ve edited dozens more written by scientists and a philosopher/theologian.
What are you working on now?
The CHRONICLES OF CHOICE series with co-author Nan Rinella. She’s the regional director in Texas for the C. S. Lewis foundation so this Christian historical fiction series gives glimpses of the wit and wisdom of C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien. A free prequel, The Battle Begins will be available for e-newsletter subscribers this summer. There’s a sign-up form on my website at ptcovert.com.
This series is set right after World War II in England. In Derailed (Book One), internal voices like Anger, Despair, and Grief plague the thoughts of Lily after the Harrow-Wealdstone train crash deals her a horrific blow. These contrast with the voices of love as demonstrated by her father (a vicar) and the Claibornes (her best friend’s family). Phila, her handsome brother Hugh (the future Earl), Lady Beatrice and Sir Henry do all they can to help as Lily rejects God, determined to make her own way as a fashion designer for the Queen’s couturier, Norman Hartnell.
In Book Two, Detoured, Phila takes center stage as she finishes her education at Oxford, intent on marrying Prince Charming. But a knight-in-shining armor, a giant Scot named Ollie, who won the Victoria Cross during the war, vies for her heart as Deception, Pride, and Self-Pity threaten. Phila and Ollie, Lily and Hugh all need to a spiritual detour from the wide road to the narrow one. Conversations with C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien in the Eagle and Child, as well as their writings, challenge internal lies.
Website: https://ptcovert.com/
Link to book: https://bit.ly/Windblown-Girl
Social media links: https://www.facebook.com/patti.townleycovert/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/patti-townley-covert-973b4614/
https://www.instagram.com/wndblwngir/
Follow me on social media!
