Emily Graves spoke with authors Betsy Duffey and Laurie Myers

Betsy Duffey and Laurie Myers

Shortly before a tragic car accident, Kate McConnell wrote down the powerful words of Psalm 23 on a piece of paper for her wayward son. Just before she loses consciousness, Kate wonders if she's done enough with her life and prays, 'Please, let my life count.'

Unbeknownst to Kate, her handwritten copy of Psalm 23 soon begins a remarkable journey around the world. From a lonely dry cleaning employee to a soldier wounded in Iraq, to a young Kurdish girl fleeing her country, to a Kenyan runner in the Rome Invitational marathon, this humble message forever changes the lives of twelve very different people. Eventually, Kate's paper makes it back to its starting place, and she discovers the unexpected ways that God changes lives, even through the smallest gestures.

Emily Graves spoke with authors Betsy Duffey and Laurie Myers to find out more about their latest adult-fiction book, The Shepherd's Song.

Emily: So, Betsy and Laurie, just to start off with, could you tell us about yourselves?

Laurie: We're daughters of writers: we've grown up with a mother who was a writer. We didn't start writing until we were adults, till we had children. We started with children's books. We both had medical careers, actually: I was a nurse and Betsy was a medical technologist and we did that for 10 years. Then our children started school and when they were in school we had time and we both started writing then.

Emily: So, what was it that led you to start writing? Had you always had that passion to write?

Betsy: Well we grew up seeing our mother write, so we knew what writing took. I didn't start writing until my children started reading and I really couldn't find the books that I wanted for them to read - and that's what I began to write: I began to try to write the books I wanted for my children.

Laurie: And I had an idea for a children's book and I couldn't get the idea out my head and so I decided one day that I would just go ahead and write it and give it a try.

Emily: So how long have you been writing together?

Laurie: We started individual writing careers doing children's books, maybe in the early 90s/late 80s and we did that separately. Then we collaborated on a couple of children's books with our mother, the three of us, and that was great fun. Then our mother decided to stop writing. She's in her 80s now. So then that was when we had a decision to make and we ended up deciding that we would continue to collaborate but turn our attention to Christian fiction.

Betsy: We wanted to be able to integrate our writing with our faith. So that was the idea - to work together and to write about our faith.

Emily: When it came to forming this idea for the book, where did that come from?

Betsy: We write together. We live in different cities so we meet once a week at a coffee shop halfway between our homes. And we were at the coffee shop and we were talking about our next idea and I had read this psalm, Psalm 23, in my quiet time that morning and we just thought it would be an amazing book - it's such a beautiful scripture - but we couldn't see it for children: we had only written children's books up until that time.

Laurie: And we liked the idea. Our goal had been to show the power of Scripture to change lives - and what better scripture to choose than Psalm 23: it's such a well-known scripture to Christians and non-Christians alike. And we of course discovered that it is the most tattooed Bible verse. So, a little-known fact: if you're considering a tattoo you can think about Psalm 23! But anyway, we decided we would try that - and we were both very nervous about it: we'd only done children's books and of course those are maybe 50/60 pages; an adult novel was going to be 250. So we stepped in, unsure whether we could do it but knowing that God was calling us to do it.