Meet Maribeth
My Story
My most shocking claim to fame has always been that I’m the oldest of 9 kids. But before all those siblings came along, I was affectionately known as both “Princess” and “Peaches,” the first baby of two young Christians who started out in a tiny apartment complex named after Robin Hood’s Sherwood Forest.
I think it’s delightfully appropriate that my very first home was named after a defiant, hope-full myth. I often tell people that stories like The Lord of the Rings and Ever After are “why I am the way that I am.” Maybe living in “Sherwood Forest” had something to do with who I am today, too.
I was homeschooled from Day One. The foundation of faith, delight-directed learning, and love for good books that my parents gave me is another reason why I am the way I am.
I’ve always loved history, story, art, and music. My parents encouraged all these passions from the time I was a little tyke, so that by the time I reached my teen years, I was writing my own historical fiction and fantasy tales while listening to all the great movie soundtracks.
After graduating high school, I took a two-year correspondence course in fiction and nonfiction writing. From there, I blogged regularly while also trying—with varying degrees of success—to write my first novel. But my writing breakthrough came only after my first true romantic heartbreak: my debut science-fiction novel, Operation Lionhearted, was born one lonely night when I started brainstorming a new story rather than crying myself to sleep.
Operation Lionhearted’s tearful beginnings reminds me of something Andrew Peterson wrote in his book Adorning the Dark:
“Those of us who write, who sing, who paint, must remember that to a child a song may glow like a nightlight in a scary bedroom. It may be the only thing holding back the monsters. That story may be the only beautiful, true thing that makes it through all the ugliness of a little girl’s world to rest in her secret heart. May we take that seriously. It is our job, it is our ministry, it is the sword we swing in the Kingdom, to remind children that the good guys win, that the stories are true, and that a fool’s hope may be the best kind.”
This is why I write, because I know this gift of mine is not mine to use for my own pleasure or sense of identity. I write because God gave me this gift to try and hold back the monsters—not just in the lives of those who read my stories and essays, but in my own life, too. When I write, whether it’s a fictional tale from the landscapes of my own imagination or a raw article on the trials of motherhood, I’m usually preaching truth to myself.
This is the sword I swing in the Kingdom alongside so many others.
These days I live in my home state of Louisiana with my husband Casey, a pastor, and our two little daughters. We are a family of many books, and we’re always adding theological volumes, novels, and board books to our family library.
I work as Executive Director for Cultivating Oaks Press, write for Cultivating Magazine, and had the honor of serving as Executive Assistant with the C.S. Lewis Foundation from 2022-2024. And while I haven’t written anymore novels (yet!!), I remain a storyteller at heart. You can still find me writing both my Substack, “Letters from Crickhollow,” and my “Cultivating Motherhood” column in Cultivating Magazine.