BLOGWORDS – Thursday 1 May 2025 – CHAT THURSDAY – CARRIE BOOTH SCHMIDT

CHAT THURSDAY – CARRIE BOOTH SCHMIDT

 

Please give a warm feathered welcome to fellow reader and blogger, Carrie Booth Schmidt.

 

FAST FAVES:

Twitter or Facebook - Facebook

Coffee or tea – Neither. Diet coke or hot chocolate please!

Dogs or cats – Dogs, no contest.

Call or text – Oh please text me. I hate phone calls.

Kindle or print – Print to hug. Kindle to read & carry around with me.

 

 

rem:  Tell us three random things about yourself.

CARRIE: One of my first words was ‘book’. William Shakespeare’s maternal aunt is my 14^th-great grandmother, making myself and the bard 1^st cousins, 14 generations apart. My record for books read in one day is seven (my husband really wanted me to include that one lol).

rem:  Holy Moly!! Reading really IS your superpower! I can’t even get through that many books in a week. LOL What is your favorite quotation and why?

CARRIE: Oh boy… that’s tough to decide. I have favorite Bible verses… favorite book quotes… favorite quotes in general. But here’s one that covers all of the above: "Visit many good books but live in the Bible." - C.H. Spurgeon

I love this quote because it reminds me that story is important – reading good books is important – but the MOST important thing is to immerse yourself in THE Story, the truest of all stories, that God tells in the Bible because these are the words of life.

 

rem:  Carrie, that is such a profound truth. When reading, what makes or breaks a story for you? Your fiction pet peeve?  

CARRIE: The characters usually make or break a story for me. If I don’t care what happens to them – either because they aren’t fully developed or there just isn’t anything redeemable about them I’m likely not going to keep reading. My fiction pet peeve is when the story stops for a sermon. Don’t get me wrong – I enjoy faith threads in my stories but I want them to occur organically and not feel like we’ve hit pause on the story flow for a moment.

 

rem:  Yes! Absolutely! Tell us a little about your reading / blogging journey.

CARRIE: I’ve always loved stories and was known as a toddler for running around saying “book, book, book” like a chicken when I wanted someone to read to me lol. I don’t plan to ever stop getting lost in great stories. My TBR ‘list’ is completely out of control, and I’m hoping in eternity that I’ll still get to catch up on the books I didn’t get to read before my time on earth was up. As far as blogging… In 2015, I was two years into a mystery illness (that we now know is Lyme Disease) that was taking away my energy and my mobility and making it difficult to do the work I’d been doing. I like to be productive though and needed to find something to do to keep myself occupied so I didn’t feel quite so stuck at home all day. Decided I’d try my hand at blogging about the books I loved, even if nobody but my mom ever read it lol, and the rest as they say is history.

rem:  Nobody but your mom…  BWAHAHAHAH What are you reading now?

CARRIE:  I recently finished Beds, Breakfasts and Beta Blockers by Jann Franklin. When this posts, I’ll be reading The Pursuit of Elena Bradford by Ann H. Gabhart.

rem:  Both new-to-me authors. Reckon I’ll have to check them out now. What is YOUR favorite part about the book or why do you love this book? Would you recommend it to readers?

CARRIE: My favorite part about Beds, Breakfasts and Beta Blockers was the humor, particularly the kooky characters who kept me giggling.  

 

rem:  I do love a great kooky character—being one myself… One more and then we’ll close. Do you have a life Scripture?

CARRIE: Am I allowed two? rem: of course  Because I have two. LOL. The first is Psalm 73:26 (NLT) which has become even more significant to me in the last 12 years with a chronic health condition. It says, “My health may fail, and my spirit may grow weak, but God remains the strength of my heart; he is mine forever.” And the second is Micah 7:8 (NIV) which was the verse I clung to during a battle with severe depression: “Do not gloat over me, my enemy! Though I have fallen, I will rise. Though I sit in darkness, the Lord will be my light.”

 

rem: As a person who also struggles with chronic illness, Psalm 72:26 speaks to me deeply. Micah 7:8, too.

 Anything you’d like to add?

CARRIE:  Thanks for having me!

rem:  Thank you so much for being here and chatting with us on my blog today!

 

Carrie Schmidt is an avid reader, book reviewer, story addict, KissingBooks fan, book boyfriend collector, and cool aunt. She also loves Jesus and THE Story a whole lot. Carrie started the popular blog ReadingIsMySuperPower.org in 2015 and since then has had the honor of co-founding the Christian Fiction Readers' Retreat and JustRead Publicity Tours. In addition to these endeavors, she has written for magazines such as RT Book Reviews and Christian Market, was a regular contributor to Seekerville, and co-authored the book Getting Past the Publishing Gatekeepers. Carrie now lives in Georgia with her husband, though her roots range from East Tennessee to Central Kentucky and northern Illinois.

You can connect with Carrie on

ReadingIsMySuperPower.org,

Facebook @meezcarriereads,

and everywhere else social at @meezcarrie.

 

 

 

 

#Blogwords, Chat Thursday, Interview, Carrie Booth Schmidt, Reading is my Superpower, JustRead