Upcoming book signings:
What: Book-signings with Joanne Huist Smith, author of “The 13th Gift”
When: 7 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 10
Where: Joseph-Beth Booksellers, 2692 Madison Road, Cincinnati
When: 8 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., Friday, Dec. 12
Where: Dayton International Airport bookstore
When: 1 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 13
Where: Barnes & Noble, 9455 Civic Center Blvd., West Chester, Ohio
VIDEO: To hear Joanne Huist Smith talk about “The 13th Gift” see MyDaytonDailyNews.com
A local woman’s personal story of tragedy and hope at Christmastime is inspiring readers throughout the country and around the world this holiday season.
For many years, writer Joanne Huist Smith — best-known locally as a Dayton Daily News city reporter — had contemplated sharing the true story of her family’s Christmas “miracle.” That idea has become a reality with the publication of her new book, “The 13th Gift,” by Harmony Books, part of the Random House family.
The book, which chronicles the difficult journey Smith and her three children faced following her husband’s sudden death just before Christmas, focuses on the mysterious gifts and kind notes that began appearing on their doorstep 13 days before the holiday. Each of the gifts from anonymous donors came with a card tied to the lyrics of the carol, “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” But instead of the phrase “my true love sent to me,” the givers inserted the words “your true friends give to you.”
The response to the story has been overwhelming: the book was No. 1 on Amazon for both Holiday Books as well as books on Grief and Bereavement. It’s been picked up by publishers in other countries including Italy, Brazil, Portugal, Japan, Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. It’s had nice mentions in both Good Housekeeping and Woman’s Day magazines, there’s talk of a movie, and Smith has been busy at book signings. She’s also recorded an audio book.
One of those who isn’t surprised at the attention the book is receiving is Smith’s editor, Leah Miller.
“I was hooked on ‘The 13th Gift’ as soon as I started reading the manuscript,” she says. “The writing is wonderful, and the story about how a small act of kindness brought a family back together just in time for Christmas instantly captured my heart.”
Miller said it’s easy to get caught up in the hubbub of the holiday season and Smith’s book is a reminder to appreciate what’s really important.
“Reading “The 13th Gift” for the first time was like being told a beautiful secret, and it’s been a joy for us to get to share that secret with the world,” she said. “A little act of kindness can make all the difference in a life, and I hope that everyone who reads this book feels inspired to bring that kindness into their own lives 365 days out of the year.”
We chatted with Smith about the attention her story is receiving and how it came to be. She said she’s always had a shoebox filled with poems and short stories, and in her late 30s saved babysitting money for two years in order to take her first writing class at Wright State University.
“Learning to write is like developing a muscle,” Smith says. “The more you do it, the stronger you get.”
She is now working on her next book.
“It’s also creative non-fiction and I hope it will also be inspirational for readers,” she says.
Q. When did you start writing "The 13th Gift?"
A. I began writing this memoir in the pages of my journal in 1999, the evening my husband died. I just didn't know it at the time. My journal was my counselor, friend and confidant. It would later serve as my memory of a time when I walked through life in a fog.
Q. Why write this book now?
A. On an October evening in 1999 I went to bed a wife and woke up a widow. That first night, and many more thereafter, my children and I abandoned our bedrooms to sleep together on the couch and on blow-up mattresses in our family room. When sleep eluded me, I would write.
I was terrified of forgetting even a moment of my life with Rick, so on sleepless nights, I re-lived our first date, dancing at our wedding, the way he cradled our tiny infants in his giant hands.
We survived that first Christmas without Rick, with help from true friends, who left anonymous gifts outside our front door. I was grateful for their efforts, but I wasn’t ready to share with the world just how broken we had been. The experience did help me realize I not only wanted to write, I needed to write to survive. I just wasn’t sure what to write. I turned to my old journals for inspiration. There, I found an entry I had written the day Rick passed.
At the suggestion of a nurse, I had escorted each of our children back to the emergency room to say goodbye to their dad, who had just died. Overhead lights beamed down on his still frame. When my son, Nick, then 12, touched his daddy’s chest and discovered his body still warm, he insisted that we ask the doctor to check again for a heartbeat.
Looking back on that heartbreaking time made me give thanks all the more for the gifts left mysteriously on our doorstep that first Christmas that helped our family to heal. I knew at that moment the story I most needed to tell, that of “The 13th Gift.”
Q. Tell us about your husband, Rick, whose death lead to writing of this memoir.
A. He was quite simply the love of my life. I met Rick one year out of high school in 1974. He road a motorcycle, stood 6'5" and his dark curly hair hung down to his shoulders. His sense of adventure and sometimes misadventure matched mine perfectly. (We got lost in the woods on our second date.) We married in 1980 and had Ben in 1982, Nick in 1985 and Megan, 1989. Rick suffered from a defective heart value, a birth defect that could no longer just be monitored. He died on Oct. 8, 1999, before scheduling the surgery.
Q. What have been some of the meaningful reactions to the book?
I think the most meaningful reactions have come in the form of emails from readers across the country, especially those who have lost loved ones.
Q. Why are holidays especially hard if you have lost a loved one?
A. Holiday traditions — whether they be lighting the menorah, displaying a Nativity scene, decorating a tree — are umbilical cords to our past, links to loved ones present and those no longer here to celebrate with us.
They are placeholders in our family history and familiar guideposts shining a light into an uncertain future. Loosening the glue that binds us to these reminders of happier times can feel like losing a loved one all over again.
Q. What is the difference between writing memoir and writing a news story?
A. News writing and memoir are both true and the motivation for both is to inform. That's where the similarities end. Writing news involves laying out the facts with objectivity so that readers can make an informed opinion. It is all about the who, what, when, where, why and how.
Emotion and opinion are the guts of memoir. The writer’s viewpoint is the heart of the story. Memoir writing tools are more akin to those used in fiction: plot, setting and characterization.
Q. What is your writing process?
A. I rise every morning around 6 a.m. to write. I start with entries in my gratitude journal, then I move on to whatever creative piece I am working on that day. I do my best writing in the early mornings, so I spend this time creating new material. I embellish and edit in the afternoons. I end my workday by jotting down notes that will jump-start my writing the following day.
Q. Tell us about your writing background.
A. I began journaling around age nine after reading "Harriet the Spy" by Louise Fitzhugh, a story of a little girl who wanted to become a writer. I have been journaling along with writing short stories and poetry every since. At Patterson Co-Op High School I worked on the student-run newspaper. I took every writing class Sinclair Community College offered, before transferring to Wright State University, where I earned a degree in English in 1996.
That degree helped me to land a reporting job at the Dayton Daily News, a career that spanned 17 years. There, I learned to write accurately and with speed while covering beats that included the city of Dayton, Montgomery, Greene and Warren counties.
In my free time, I continued to write creatively. The Antioch Writers’ workshop, through its work-fellow program, helped me to gain the confidence and the skills to write this memoir.
Q: What is the 13th gift and did you ever identify the mysterious gift givers?
A: You will find those answers in Chapter 13 of the book. Happy reading!
About the Author
