Cheryl Grey Bostrom
10 min read ⭑
“When I begin a day’s work, I usually have no idea what I’ll write or how I’ll write it. Only after I ask and wait do the words arrive. All I can say is that I feel like a scribe taking dictation. This work’s not originating in my mess of neurons and synapses. When characters begin talking of their own accord and phrases arrive from out of the blue, I’m under no illusion about Who’s sending them.”
Cheryl Grey Bostrom has an inspired way with words. She is a novelist with an international best-seller fiction book, a photographer and an observer of nature and human behavior. When she’s not devoting her time to practicing her craft through daily writing, you can find Cheryl outdoors, seeking to slow her active mind “enough to grab Christ’s hand.”
In this interview, Cheryl shares with vulnerability about her kryptonite — her fear of failing at doing the very thing she was created to do. She opens up about her inspirations, her weaknesses and how she tricks the left side of her brain into surrendering to still, creative, quiet moments with God.
QUESTION #1: ACQUAINT
There’s much more to food than palate and preference. How does a go-to meal at your favorite hometown restaurant reveal the true you behind the web bio?
Let’s set the stage. A century ago, the Netherlands immigrants who established family dairies near our tiny NW Washington town preferred meals they remembered from their Dutch homeland. As far as I can tell from the restaurant menus around here, generations since still favor that hearty, rich diet.
Now I’m an enthusiastic eater, so the hearty part pleases me to no end. But after my husband and I switched to a mostly whole-food, plant-based diet a dozen years ago, the rich component no longer worked for us. Since entrees at restaurants around here skew to high-fat foods, we learned to cook with bountiful spices instead of added oils, and we rarely eat out.
But when we do? Ironically, it’s at the 116-year-old bakery in the heart of town because, behind all those glassed in shelves of high-fat pastries, they keep a pot of erwtensoep warm. Snert (its other Dutch name) is easier to pronounce, but you likely know it as split pea soup.
I love the stuff. In our Dutch bakery’s version, there’s no oil to skim, and it’s so hearty my spoon stands upright in refrigerated leftovers.
I like it for more than dietary reasons though. Pea color aside, a bowlful is nothing short of a culinary artist’s rendition of…well…how Christ is cooking me to nourish others. Besides its base of dried split peas, the soup’s full of veggies — pureed, of course. I like to think of those added plants as holy, fiber-rich wisdom and love that they make the dried peas of my experiences edible and, in Romans 8:28’s context, good for my soul. Each pea and carrot, spud and onion? Ingredients in the Lord’s recipe for my long and slow-cooked life. When digested, that soup fuels my stories and poems with savory, stick-to-the-ribs hope.
And those little ham bits? Gotta be puns — umami for my snerty heart.
Patrice Bouchard; Unsplash
QUESTION #2: REVEAL
We’ve all got quirky proclivities and out-of-the-way interests. So what are yours? What so-called “nonspiritual” activities do you love and help you find spiritual renewal?
On her recent visit, my favorite nine-year-old sidled to a craft table where I sorted paints amidst an assortment of watercolor paper, sketches and brushes. She dunked a rigger brush in a cup of water and tapped it on the edge like any experienced artist would. We’d done this before.
“You like quiet things,” she said.
“Hunh,” I said, surprised. With kids I can be rather noisy. I’d never thought to consider my interests through the lens of quietness.
“Painting, knitting, reading.” She dabbed the outline of a fir’s limb with green. “Watching birds, writing, hiking. You like ‘em, and they’re all quiet.”
Point taken, little girl. I added photography to her list and thought of how few things please or spiritually nourish me more than solo excursions with my camera into fields, forests or mountain trails to snap pics of raptors and passerines, insects and sunrises, leaf nodes and snowfall, tadpoles and coyotes and bears. I haul lenses — long and wide-angle, telephoto and macro — and have mastered the quick swap to whichever perspective can best capture the voice and character of God in his created world.
“And your garden,” she said.
Ah, yes. That, too. That, too.
QUESTION #3: CONFESS
Every superhero has a weakness. Every human, too. We’re just good at faking it. But who are we kidding? We’re broken and in this thing together. So what’s your kryptonite and how do you hide it?
As soon as I read this question, I thought of Chuchundra, that muskrat who creeps around walls in the 1893 short story “Rikki-Tikki-Tavi.” Author Rudyard Kipling describes the animal as “a broken-hearted little beast. He whimpers and cheeps all the night, trying to make up his mind to run into the middle of the room, but he never gets there.”
Stay with me on this. That rodent has a lot to do with my lifelong fear of failure.
Specifically, my fear that I could never write fiction, though I have a vivid memory of myself at age ten telling my grandmother I would write a novel. Little did I realize then that I would guard that heart’s desire against disappointment by refusing to try.
Almost fifty years later, I still hadn’t written that book. Though God had been infusing my life with His transforming love for decades, this crazy fear of writing fiction was true kryptonite. I did my best to hide it by writing poetry, a master’s thesis on writing, short-form essays and non-fiction books. I edited others’ works and taught students to write. I stuck my toe in fiction’s pond through a couple of classes in creative writing, but I only typed a single — that’s one — short story. Scared and dodgy, I was a figurative muskrat, faking disinterest in writing any sort of fiction. Skirting edges of the room where fiction writers create, I glowed green.
But at the birth of that little nine-year-old I told you about, something in me shifted, and I welled with yearning to write for her. I see it as calling now — God’s response to that buried lifelong desire of my heart as I trusted him. My love for this child swung my self-centered spotlight from a paralyzing fear of my imagination’s limitations to a desire to bless her with one empowered by my creative Creator.
Honestly, it was like floodgates opened. In succeeding months, a story poured out of me for that sweet girl. Then two more novels arrived for my next two grands. In God’s kindness and to His purposes, my work has reached others, too. With three novels mostly wrapped up, I’m still listening, still transcribing for him in the middle of the room.
I couldn’t be more grateful.
QUESTION #4: FIRE UP
Tell us about your toil. How are you investing your professional time right now? What’s your obsession? And why should it be ours?
I put in full days of writing. Five or six days a week I start at the crack of dawn and write until I reach the word count goal that keeps me on track for my deadlines. Some days I’m in the zone and others I’m pulling hens’ teeth, but listening hard and keeping my hands on the keys or my pen on my yellow pad works, and the words add up.
Professionally, my fiction comes first, now that I can actually write it. In some days’ later hours, I work on my blog “Watching Nature, Seeing Life,” which I’ve posted along with my photography on WordPress for years. Intrigued by authentic engagement on Substack, in January 2024 I began posting duplicate content there, too, under Birds in the Hand.
Great fun.
If you read enough of my stuff in books, blogs and social media, you’ll know pretty quickly that I’m utterly captured by nature. I see the created world as an expression of God’s character, an illustration of the Word, and — someday, when it’s not groaning anymore — the place where we’ll hang out for eternity. Caring about, and for, creation is nothing short of a response of love and gratitude to the One who made it, and meditating on its wonders can be a boundless source of joy. Besides, nature helps us love better. By humbling us with awe, it redirects us away from Babel-style tower building.
We all ought to care about it.
QUESTION #5: BOOST
Cashiers, CEOs, contractors, or customer service reps, we all need grace flowing into us and back out into the world. How does the Holy Spirit invigorate your work? And how do you know it’s God when it happens?
Among pics, prayers, verses and a couple of punny cartoons above my desk, I’ve pinned a few quotes. One of them, which psychologist Carl Jung had carved over his door (and requested for his tombstone) reads, “Bidden or unbidden, God is present.” A second by Francis Chan includes this: “I couldn’t be doing this by my own power.”
This is absolutely true for me. When I begin a day’s work, I usually have no idea what I’ll write or how I’ll write it. Only after I ask and wait do the words arrive. All I can say is that I feel like a scribe taking dictation. This work’s not originating in my mess of neurons and synapses. When characters begin talking of their own accord and phrases arrive from out of the blue, I’m under no illusion about Who’s sending them.
For fifty years I got nowhere with fiction on my own. That lesson’s burned into me. I need him to write these stories, and he’s here. Oh, he’s here.
QUESTION #6: inspire
Scripture and tradition beckon us into the rich and varied actions that open our hearts to the presence of God. So spill it, which spiritual practice is workin’ best for you right now?
I have a jackrabbit, non-linear brain. Concepts coalesce all at once for me, much like the scenes that sharpen when I twist focus rings on my camera lenses. Also, I read very quickly. Combined, those traits have proven hugely useful for checking boxes, assimilating data and shaping practical plans and conclusions.
But a left brain in high gear can be a closed-circuit tyrant, leaving little room for the full expression of worship in both truth and spirit that John talks about in his gospel. My bossy left hemisphere digs the intellectual part of truth but can overpower its reflective, deep-souled absorption and my emotional and spiritual response to God.
So…I trick it. Quiet it with detours. “C’mon,” I say. “Let’s go walking. Hum a little.”
Most days, we do — for miles and miles over trails and fields and country roads.
Outbound, worship music plays on my phone until the rambunctious kid in me slows enough to grab Christ’s hand. By the time we turn and head for home, my Bible app’s playing a dramatized version of the NLT. The reading’s slow, and I can hear it with all of me.
Often, I weep along the way. If you’ve ever studied tears, you’ll know that their composition differs depending upon their emotional inspiration.
I figure mine speak of time with God.
QUESTION #7: FOCUS
Our email subscribers get free ebooks featuring our favorite resources — lots of things that have truly impacted our faith lives. But you know about some really great stuff, too. What are three resources that have impacted you?
Hmm. My top resources? I’ll share four. Though I may answer differently next week, at the moment I’d list these:
Early on, the Parallel Bible, with its side-by-side translations, was immensely useful to me as I became familiar with the Word. More recently I’ve used BibleHub.com to compare versions and deepen my understanding of the verses I’m stowing.
Through many seasons, I’ve read rafts of non-fiction books on faith and Christian growth. While I remember learning and benefitting from so many, their contents all blended into that soup I told you about. Collectively, they’ve had an impact on me, so I’m mentioning them as a wrapped bundle here. No single book’s distinct, but I’d probably be different without any one of them. Ongoing learning was the key.
When it comes to illustrations of biblical principles to which I’ve returned time and again for myself and for others, C.S. Lewis’s fictional “Chronicles of Narnia” takes the cake. Funny, right, that they’d be my choice? They’re for kids from nine to ninety, I guess. I can’t count how many times their scenes have returned to me. Apart from Scripture, I’ve cited no works more often. For this girl who thinks in pictures, the visuals speak.
Hands down, the game-changer and rocket in my faith trek has been Bible Study Fellowship. I joined when my youngest was a preschooler and have attended or led discussions most years since. Through its four-pronged approach, God’s Word has sunk into my bones and bloodstream, my heart and soul, equipping me, fortifying me and solidifying my identity in Christ. I recommend BSF every chance I get.
We all have things we cling to to survive (or thrive) in tough times. Name one resource you’ve found indispensable in this current season — and tell us what it's done for you.
If I had to pick just one thing that helps me survive and thrive, I’d say I depend upon memorized Scripture. I have no doubt that, when held inside me, the Word’s living and active in all the ways Hebrews 4 describes. I’ve been downright gobsmacked at how the Holy Spirit will bring verses I’ve learned to the fore in creative, instructive and protective ways I would never have come up with on my own, much less with such perfect timing. As our culture goes blurry, I need that wisdom and truth — need him — if I’m to put one foot ahead of the other.
Runners-up? Gotta be corporate worship and birds in flight. Singing with a pack of Christ-followers connects me to heaven, and winged creatures assure me that we’re all being carried.
Come for coffee. One way or another, and we’ll talk birds.
QUESTION #8: dream
God is continually stirring new things in each of us. So, give us the scoop! What’s beginning to stir in you but not yet fully awakened? What can we expect from you in the future?
After I wrap up edits for my 2025 novel “River Hoarder,” I’ll tune in to the next story that rumbled me awake from a dream a few weeks back.
Yeah, rumbled. As in earthquake.
I think the story will be multi-generational. Maybe a dual-timeline piece with its epicenter on historic seismic activity that collapsed not only buildings but a family’s relational foundations. Fault lines will run through land and lives.
I cried when the idea first arrived, but given marketing tasks for “Leaning on Air” and revisions for “River Hoarder”, I haven’t yet prayed much about the characters or how to flesh out their arcs. The snippets I imagined suggest the story will be culturally relevant, spiritually thought-provoking and emotionally charged. Already I sense it’ll fill one novel. Or two. I have only a vague idea of how my own history will inspire or dovetail with it, but since my experience has influenced my other three novels, I expect this one will, as well.
More redemption, for even life’s hardest scenes. Nothing’s wasted.
Thanks for asking.
Cheryl knew at an early age that she was passionate about writing fiction, but her dream didn’t come to fruition until decades later. She shares that for fifty years, she tried to write stories on her own, but the realization that God wanted to write the stories with her has now been etched on her heart. Overcoming the fear of failure and allowing His inspiration to move her beyond her own limits, Cheryl knows the joy of partnering with God in creating.
Take some time to ask God if there are dreams in your heart he’s given that haven’t had a chance to come to life yet. Ask him to reveal any hindrances standing in the way and for his inspiration to fill you and move you forward into realizing those dreams.
Tyndale novelist Cheryl Grey Bostrom, M.A., writes surprising prose and poetry that reflect her keen interest in nature and human behavior. Her four books include her international best seller Sugar Birds — the winner of more than a dozen fiction awards, and Leaning on Air, endorsed as “a reader’s dream,” and a “cross-generational masterpiece.” An avid photographer, she and her veterinarian husband live in the Pacific Northwest.
