Emily Gray Clawson describes herself as an author, mother, and youth mentor. Born and raised in Utah, she is passionate about her faith and great books and will share her love of both with anyone who will listen. Emily began writing at the age of seven, creating homemade picture books that she peddled from door to door. She self-published her first novel, Things Hope For, and is collaborating with Jennifer Graves on a book entitled A Sister’s Witness: The Powell Family Tragedy. With her husband, Richard, Emily founded two youth leadership programs, Handmaidens of Virtue and Mastering Knighthood. Trained in vocal performance in college, she has enjoyed including aspects of her training in this book. Emily and Richard are the parents of four children and live in Taylorsville, Utah.
Visit Emily: BLOG | TWITTER | FACEBOOK | GOODREADS
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LDSWBR: What books do you plan/hope to read this summer?
EMILY: Oh, the list is long. A few (off the top of my head): Change of Plans by Donna King Weaver. Pretty Like Us by Carol Lynch Williams (I’m a HUGE fan). Everything I can get my hands on by Shannon Hale. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green (am I the only person in the world who hasn’t already read it?). Also, lots of awesome reading for my critique group members, Jordan McCollum and Julie Bellon.
LDSWBR: Did you ever go to summer camp, and/or what is your most memorable camping experience?
EMILY: Summer camp, summer camp. I remember one year at LDS Young Women’s camp. We went to a girl scout camp, Cloud Rim. It was awesome. Canoeing and hiking and all sorts of stuff. On the second day we got news of a huge storm cell headed our way complete with flash flood warnings for our area. We had to be evacuated. We were devastated. We’d been looking forward to this for months! We all made our way back home and finished up our “camp” in the gym of our church. Not exactly the Uintas. In the end, I was grateful that our leaders kept us safe.
LDSWBR: If you could have a summer home anywhere in the world, where would it be?
EMILY: Somewhere in the pacific northwest. Trees. Beaches. Breezes. More trees. Sand. Seashells. More trees. Hey, did I mention trees? I always long for the cool and green of the forest when it gets toasty and sweltering in July and August.
LDSWBR: Thank you, Emily!
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Find A Way Back to You
AMAZON (Paperback & Kindle) | DESERET BOOK (Paperback & ebook) | GOODREADS
For two-and-a-half years, Annabelle, a young widow with three small children, has been stuck in the past. Numbed by grief and overwhelmed by the responsibility of raising her three small children alone, she agrees to let them spend the weekend with a friend while she tries to get some much-needed rest at her parents’ home. But the next morning, Annabelle is suddenly sixteen again—and it just happens to be the worst day of her teenage years. As she relives the drama of high school life, Annabelle realizes that her future husband, Mitch, has just returned from a mission and is living on the other side of town. While getting Mitch’s attention is more complicated than she imagined, Annabelle discovers that she is stronger than she has been willing to admit, and there just might be a future for her after all.
Has bad weather ever ruined your plans?
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Book prizes generously donated by the authors as of 6/20/2013 (more added throughout the countdown!):
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20 Responses to “A Way Back to You by Emily Gray Clawson – Countdown to Summer 2013”
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We were set to go camping last year…I had the tent set up and waiting for when my husband got off work. It was pouring rain when we started out to our camp site, and by the time we got there, it had turned to snow. I think it was the leaking tent that was the clincher…we ate dinner, packed up, and returned home. :-)
Sometimes the weather ruins our plans, there was one night last winter we were going to go to gymnastics at the U, and the snow just kept coming. We went anyway, and it was one of those really big snow nights. I think we ended up with more snow at our house in the valley than they actually had at the U on the mountain. Crazyness! :)
YES! Most definitely! In May of 1998 my husband and I had an outdoor wedding reception planned in Southern CA. The week before our wedding it rained and rained and rained some more. At the last minute we had to move our reception inside. Thankfully we had booked our local Church building as a back up plan. We also had to change our honeymoon plans. We were planning on heading to a cabin in Big Bear, but the mountain snow had gotten so bad that chains were required. Yep, weather can put a damper on things :) !!
After Girl’s Camp each year, we would have a ‘complete ending to camp’ party at one of the girl’s outdoor pool. It seemed every time we went, there were either clouds or rain threatening out party. There were only a couple of times where we had to get out because of lightning, but other than that, we all stayed in and had a great, cold, time!
As a child, I remember tent camping in Southern Utah and having a thunderstorm come through. There was so much rain! My dad and brothers were out in it, desperately trying to trench the tent to prevent everything getting soaked or washed away. It didn’t ruin our plans, but it was definitely a memory maker. :)
I’m looking forward to reading this book — it sounds so intriguing! I haven’t done a lot of camping, but I do remember waking up in a tent one night to the sound of pouring rain and then not being able to go back to sleep because I was afraid our tent was going to leak (and it did, but only a little bit).
There have been a handful of times while camping that rain has kept us to our tent for awhile, but thankfully no major plans have been ruined because of the weather.
Yes! I remember I was planning to drive with my mom from Iowa up to Minnesota for something. I think we were going to look at horse farms. But we cancelled the trip because the weather wasn’t cooperating. I was so mad. But looking back, I hardly remember it! So it must not have been that big of deal. :)
Yes, while on our relaxing vacation our last 2 days that we were planning on enjoying the beautiful summer weather. We had plans to hike and enjoy the beautiful outdoors.(Not having access to the internet or TV that the weather was going to be rainy and cold). So needless to say we ended up having a movie and hang out around the house day.
This book is on my list to read this summer, it sounds so good!
My most memorable weather moment was when my roommates and I were driving through Southern Utah and a random dust storm hit. We could see NOTHING! We had to slow down and look out the window to see the barely there white lines on the side of the road and keep going because we didn’t want to get hit from behind. It lasted for a good 20 minutes and was so stressful.
This book is one of the BEST books I have read this year!
Coming home from California we hit a blizzard in Southern Utah…couldn’t see a thing!
Every time we go on our once a year trip to Bear Lake it rains….every time….
A severe thunderstorm came through our campsite once. Not only was it terrifying to hear the loud thunder and see bright flashes of lightning too close for comfort, but our one year old woke up as the storm was subsiding and wouldn’t go back to sleep. So we drove home at two in the morning, exhausted and grumpy.
This last time we went camping and it started raining pretty badly the last afternoon we were there. One of our friends ended up leaving early. But rain is my favorite weather, so I was happy!!
Not really – it rained my first year of of Girls Camp, but it didn’t really ruin anything……
Like Emily I too was victim to intense rains while at an LDS girls camp, however our leaders told us to ride it out so we had a week of soaking wet sleeping bags in tents that had a layer of water at the bottom and being in a constant state of dampness no matter what time it was or where you were. It was great!!
Oh and I totally agree that a beach house in the pacific northwest would be amazing!!
Since I hate camping, I’m sort of always watching for a bad weather forecast whenever I am involved in a camp. Praying for it, actually.
The day we took our bridal photos it was horrible weather! We almost had to cancel due to rain.
I got stuck in the Minneapolis airport with my baby once. For 16 hours! Longest day of my life.
We had to cut our wedding photos short after our marriage in the Mesa temple because it was about 113 degrees. Book sounds great!