Many of you have read my short story collection, Birds of a Feather, was published by Wiseblood Books. For those who have not read it, the stories are about those personal demons which never really leave us. They hover very close to the things we desire, waiting to turn us in harmful directions. So often, and in various ways–through people, or events– we are warned to beware of them, but just as often, we set the warnings aside. And we can do that, why? Because each of us has God-given Free Will. And this is central to the books I write.
BUT also central to my books is HOPE in the chance for restoration. Hope is set into us by God, as are Faith and Love. Every human being is created to exemplify these virtues and literally has the ability to do so. The fact that we often choose not to exemplify them doesn’t mean we can’t. The personal demons we allow in our lives are indeed conquerable.
Like some of the characters in these stories, we are all mistaken sometimes; sometimes we do wrong things, things that have bad consequences. But it doesn’t mean we are evil, or that we can’t be trusted ever again. Our demons often feed on our frequent leanings toward hopelessness which does not take into consideration the grace of God. But if we want to change, if we truly HOPE to change, then change is surely possible.
….. In the past few years Kaye Park Hinckley has emerged as a major talent in what Paul Elie calls “the literature of belief.” Hinckley translates grace in a world on edge, sees a double beginning and ending in everything, literally everything, including the unspeakably awful. Like her novel A Hunger in the Heart, the stories in Birds of a Feather—several of which have won substantive awards—take us to the heart of the matter.– Publisher, Wiseblood Books.
Praise for Birds of a Feather:
The first story in this collection sits a reader bolt upright. Two stories in, you marvel at this storyteller, who sends us flying over new country, a landscape of modern parables where faith runs river-deep. Kaye Park Hinckley seems to overflow with beautiful, heartbreaking love and lessons. A world with broken wings can surely make use of such stories.
—Charles McNair, author of Pickett’s Charge and Land O’Goshen
“With masterful control and skillful writing, Kaye Park Hinckley boldly explores a wide range of wounded souls in this amazing collection of stories, ultimately finding love in the unloveable, and grace in the sufferings of a complex world.”
—Cassandra King, author of The Sunday Wife
Print Reviews:
“The short stories in Birds of a Feather are richly imagined tales full of finely drawn characters who demonstrate how people estranged from faith can bumble through life so distracted by worldly horrors and delights, so full of themselves, that they don’t even notice faint nudges of grace that stir in their souls or recognize subtle emanations of the holy that abound in the world around them.” –The Catholic World Report
Voted one of the Six Best Fiction Books from the First Half of 2014.
“Kaye Park Hinckley’s stories give a fuller picture of the Christian faith. Like a bird-watcher, the thoughtful reader can even learn to spot the flutter of redemption in these stories.” –Englewood Book Reviewer Magazine
“Hinckley’s characters are complicated. They’ve done horrible things, witnessed horrible things, been the victims of horrible things, yet they continue rising each morning and putting one foot in front of the other. They fulfill their obligations to each other while these horrible things gnaw at them from the inside out. Hinckley deftly presents the repulsiveness of her character’s actions, while also revealing her characters’ drive toward love. ..fully developed plots and well-rounded characters.” –Lake Oconee Living Magazine, Lucy Adams
“The birds in Kaye Park Hinckley’s short story collection, Birds of a Feather, all find themselves from flocks of Catholics. Their family members, or at least a shining few, believe in forgiveness, hope and redemption. But it’s the sinners with whom we most sympathize. How can we not? Hinckley’s expert literary craft is matched by the drama of Judeo-Christian values confronting American relativism and egoism. “– ANGELUS, The Tidings Online, Jennifer Ann Jones
Translating a World on the Edge 