HARDY, LeAnne 1951-

Personal

Born September 21, 1951, in Rochester, MN; daughter of Charles F. (a radiologist) and Letha (a nurse; maiden name, Stuart) Smith; married Steven A. Hardy (a consultant for Third World Theological Schools), May 12, 1973; children: Katie, Erika. Education: Attended Wheaton College; Indiana University, B.A.; University of Minnesota, M.A. Religion: Christian. Hobbies and other interests: Figure skating.

Addresses

Office— Author's Mail, c/o Kregel Publications, 733 Wealthy St., SE, P.O. Box 2607, Grand Rapids, MI 49501-2607. E-mail— [email protected].

Career

Librarian at Good Shepard School, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 1976-77, Faculdade Teologica d'Oestedo Brasil, Campo Grande, MS, Brazil, 1978-82, and Laulane Seminary, Maputo, Mozambique, 1985-90; library consultant for Africa Evangelical Fellowship and Overseas Council for Theological Education based at Kempton Park, South Africa, 1993-96, then Africa Evangelical Fellowship mission archivist, Newbury, Berkshire, England, 1997-98.

Member

Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, Association of Christian Librarians, Commission for International Library Assistance.

Writings

The Wooden Ox (novel), Kregel Publications (Grand Rapids, MI), 2002.

Between Two Worlds (novel), Kregel Publications (Grand Rapids, MI), 2003.

So That's What God Is Like, Kregel Publications (Grand Rapids, MI), 2004.

Work in Progress

The picture books When I Move to Africa and God Loves Me When I Hurt; and Glastonbury Tor, a novel set in sixteenth-century England.

Sidelights

LeAnne Hardy told Something about the Author: "'Write what you know,' is the advice new writers are given. While living in six countries on four continents over the last twenty-five years, I have sipped cream tea in Oxfordshire, eaten stewed goat at a Mozambican wedding, slid down rocks in a Mato Grosso river, and shopped at the Mall of America. What I know is Africa, Latin America, and the joys and frustrations of moving between cultures.

"My stories come out of real experiences. Sometimes those experiences are mine. Sometimes they belong to someone else, but the emotions are mine. African rebels never kidnapped my family as they do the Larsons in The Wooden Ox, but I did struggle with the problem of evil when I saw a nation crumbling, good people going hungry, and children traumatized by war.

"While much religious fiction is about people coming to faith, I want to write about what that faith looks like when it is worked out in real situations. I don't want to settle for easy answers that will soon be outgrown, but to give young people images and ideas that will carry them through a lifetime of serving God."

Biographical and Critical Sources

PERIODICALS

Kliatt, May, 2003, Maureen K. Griffin, review of The Wooden Ox, p. 17; November, 2003, Maureen Griffin, review of Between Two Worlds, p. 14.