A number of readers have asked about my unusual name.  The pure Anglo Saxon, usually male name, put together with a female Christian Saint name seems a bit confusing, I admit.

My given name is “Kyle.”  I took the name, “Anne,” when I converted to Catholicism at age 30, now 26 years ago.  Saint Anne was the mother of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

It is written that Saint Anne and her husband, Saint Joachim waited nearly twenty years for the birth of their only child, and that when their blessed-among-all-women daughter was born, Saint Anne was past child-bearing age and had given up hope.  The year my husband and I converted to Catholicism, we too had been waiting nearly ten years for the hoped-for arrival of a second child.  Perhaps I took the name of Saint Anne, hoping that her intercessions would bring me a similar joy to hers.  And within a few years’ time, my husband and I did indeed bear a lovely daughter to go with our ferocious son.

Even though we had yearned for many children, God gave us only two.  I tell our kids that He gave us quality, rather than the quantity we were seeking.  And it is true; they are both admirable young people.

I use both names when signing my writing to signify for my readers both the fact that I am not male, but rather female, and that I am a Christian above all else.

My family tree is littered with artists, writers and a few musicians, and I spent all of my years as a full-time mom, supplementing our income with the sale of my paintings.  My mother is an artist, and I learned to paint before I could read, so it came very naturally.  Painting has been important and somewhat fulfilling, but writing is my passion.

Fifteen years ago, I had a first novel published and really believed it would be a success; it wasn’t.  For a decade I quietly wrote fiction that few people ever read, and piled up a nice collection of rejection slips.  I might be piling them up still, if not for events far away and out of my control.

My life changed on September 11, 2001, our generation’s “Day of Infamy.”  I had been on the front lines of the culture war every day raising our children, but when I saw those planes hit in NYC and DC, I was driven past grief to know how in the world we ended up in the mess we are in now.

I spent five years book-worming my way through the Koran and many other volumes about Mohammed and Islam.  That took me into the political realm to learn all I could about the leaders whose fateful decisions seemed to weaken America’s defenses and empower the enemies of our civilization.

Finally, I put all else aside and devoted myself to reading and writing, using every ounce of my energy to apply my God-given common sense and forty years of Christian discipleship into the service of my Country through the power of the pen.  This war will take many and varied soldiers to win; I hope to be one of them.