Christina Capecchi

Jan 7, 2025 | todayscatholic.org | Christina Capecchi

If you’re trying to write a book about quiet and you’re a mom of four, you might need a few extensions on your deadline. Such was the reality for writer Sarah Clarkson, 40, daughter of the acclaimed Christian author Sally Clarkson. It all began – as did so many creative pursuits – during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Sarah Clarkson began “deep, convicted work” about quiet: why it’s threatened, why it’s needed, how to cultivate it.

Dec 10, 2024 | todayscatholic.org | Christina Capecchi

Growing up on a small farm, vacations were rare for Liz Gilbert. But one summer, her parents enlisted a neighbor to tend to their goats and chickens so the Gilberts could retreat to the beach for a week. The morning they departed, Liz’s mom stripped her bed, washed the sheets, and neatly remade the bed – as if she were preparing it for a guest. Liz was puzzled. No one would be staying there that week. Why bother? “Oh,” her mom explained. “This is just a little present I’m giving my future self.

Nov 7, 2024 | todayscatholic.org | Christina Capecchi

There was a time when Katherine Louise DeGroot didn’t consider quiet suburbs or small towns. She was a city girl, thank you very much, and it suited her work as a nanny and a photographer. Katherine was always on the go, hustling to book the next gig, racing to beat the clock. It was exciting. It took a beautiful house to lure Katherine from Minneapolis to Stillwater, Minnesota, an old town on the St. Croix River.

Oct 8, 2024 | todayscatholic.org | Christina Capecchi

Opal Whiteley was 6 years old when she began keeping a diary, scrawling with a crayon in tightly spaced, phonetically spelled words. She recorded her wanderings and wonderings in the woods of her Oregon logging community. She was prodded by her mother’s admonition to write about what, where, when, how, and why, and she was grasping at the transcendent, describing a “Cathedral” of cedars. “I hear songs – lullaby songs of the trees,” Opal wrote.

Sep 17, 2024 | todayscatholic.org | Christina Capecchi

The winter of 1915 was so cold in northeastern Minnesota that a moose wandered into the small town of Biwabik and settled in a horse stable. The moose gradually won over the townspeople, who had initially tried to evict him. His memorable stay became part of Biwabik’s oral history, one day reaching the town’s basketball coach, an Iowa native named Phil Stong. Stong had an ear for a good story.