“The Wrong Side of Eternity” by Mary Mendenhall is an award-winning book, coming up soon on our bookstore
Mary Mendenhall, author of award-winning book The Wrong Side of Eternity, came up with the storyline while praying inside a chapel in Kampala, Uganda.
It all took place in 1998 shortly after the publication of her first book, Michael and the Ice Princess: A Mystical Romance. She describes the experience “as if the story fell into my head from an upper windowsill: plot, people, places – it was all there.” However, The Wrong Side of Eternity remained a manuscript for another 18 years, during which time she was too ill to write. “It is really an homage to the generous souls I met in Uganda. They had lived through so much and had much to teach me.”
In 2016, the book was honored for historical fiction by the Pinnacle Book Achievement. A year later, it was listed as a finalist in the “Fiction: Multicultural” category of the 2017 Best Book Awards, and won the same status from the Book Excellence Awards in 2018.
A community and mental health nurse, Mendenhall lived overseas and taught music and drama to young people in Cyprus and Uganda as part of ‘development’ mission work. She studied the social sciences and finds relational issues – including racism and misogyny – challenging across cultures.
Always looking for ways to connect and encourage people, she has done health education as stand-up comedy, family education for the National Alliance on Mental Illness (for which she won a hero award from the State of Washington in 2015), and mentoring young people in music as a pit-orchestra woodwind player. She considers herself “a bit of a Renaissance woman” with her diverse interests, but the bottom line is to help others believe in themselves and pursue lives of excellence and compassion.
She is at work on a 3rd book, reflecting on the imagination of Saint Clare of Assisi. Mary has been a Franciscan since 2000. She lives in Washington state and has three grown sons.
