Ann Clark McFarland
I was born in New York and raised in a Chicago suburb, but Texas is now my home. I write futuristic adult novels about science, spirit, medicine, and missions.
The medicine part of my writing comes from my nurse’s training and the fact that I married a physician. Shop talk at our family table is medicine.
The missions influence comes from my parents and the writing in particular comes from my professor father. He loved books, stories, and people’s stories. As a toddler, I spent days perched near his study table surrounded by books while he wrote.
However, experience with medicine and missions is not why I write. There is a secret reason I write.
I write because I am afraid. I have found writing to be the perfect channel to redirect my fears and anxiety. The overwhelming “what ifs” that clamor for my attention are perfect fodder for book plot catastrophes.
My ancestors lived fearless lives. I am the grandchild of a radio preacher who broadcasted from Quito, Ecuador as the “Voice of The Andes.” Both sides of my parent’s families served in mission work for generations. In six generations on my father’s side alone there were sixty-four missionaries who served on five different continents.
But the mission work of my ancestors came with great costs and one event in particular affects me to this day and has created in me my compulsion to write.
My father and mother were children of missionaries. They grew up in a boarding school away from their parents. During formative years, my father suffered abuse at the hands of his schoolmates that went undetected for over a decade. As an adult, the trauma he suffered caused great agony in his spirit. He struggled with his identity. His depression and suicide attempts embroiled our family in a constant battle of light and dark.
As far back as I can remember, I struggled with fear. Ongoing nightmares haunted me. In the dreams, I am a child (or with a child) and there is some danger. In these dreams, I am supposed to be the protector, but instead the situation grows out of my control. Usually, the dreams ended in violence and death. Days are better now. But I struggled with these fears until I got counseling in my forties, and I was diagnosed with PTSD.
It’s crazy what terrors the mind can imagine, but one thing that calms my spirit is knowing God. I have raged at him and turned my back on him for the trauma that occurred. He created life to exist in perfection, but why was my life so broken? I’ve learned to look for God’s hand in the brokenness. God’s hand kept my father alive through his trauma. God’s hand has been with me through my terrors.
I still struggle with questions and terrors. But, I still see God’s hand. I am comforted that the one who created perfection is bringing that perfect wholeness back to me.
I will wait to see it happen. And meanwhile, I will write stories about the dark and the light and look to that future day.
- Ann