Sarah Hinlicky Wilson
ALLi Author Member
Location: United States of America
Genres: Literary Fiction, Academic, Religion, Memoir, Travel Writing, Magical Realism, Short/Flash Fiction Collection, Spiritual Poetry
Life Told Backward I’m the Founder of Thornbush Press, launched in 2020, and the author of numerous books, both from Thornbush and other presses, along with hundreds of articles and podcast episodes. From August 2018 to May 2025 I lived in Mitaka, Japan, on the campus of Japan Lutheran College and Theological Seminary, where my husband Andrew L. Wilson served as Professor of Church History. I worked as Associate Pastor to the English Ministry at Tokyo Lutheran Church near the Shin-Ōkubo station in central Tokyo. I’m also an Affiliated Faculty Member at the Johannelund School of Theology in Uppsala, Sweden. Before that, I lived and worked in Strasbourg, France, serving at the Institute for Ecumenical Research, a close affiliate of the Lutheran World Federation, specializing in Eastern Orthodoxy and Pentecostalism. In 2010, Andrew and I followed the footsteps of Martin Luther's pilgrimage from Germany to Rome five hundred (or maybe four hundred ninety-nine) years earlier. I earned a Ph.D. in Systematic Theology in 2008 and an M.Div. in 2003 at Princeton Theological Seminary and a B.A. in Theology and Philosophy from Lenoir-Rhyne College (which has since upgraded to Lenoir-Rhyne University).
Sarah Hinlicky Wilson's books
Genres: Magical Realism
Formats: E-Book, Audio, Paperback, Hardback
Age Groups: 18+
The year is 1988, and the Abney family is settled in at Mt. Moriah Lutheran Church in rural Shibboleth, New York. Their life is not without its challenges. Pastor Donald is haunted by the probing, judging memory of his revivalist grandfather. His wife Carmichael struggles to feel at home, a task not made any easier by her parents’ inconvenient revelation of family secrets. Eleven-year-old Kitty is equally averse to growing up and to insufferable classmate Megan. At least little Saul and Asher, born within a year of each other, are content as they explore the meadow on the steep hillside surrounding church and parsonage. Then tragedy strikes, shattering family and faith. A faction in the congregation exploits the disaster, threatening to rob the Abneys of what little is left of their impoverished life. A-Tumblin’ Down topples headlong into grief and explores the strong grace needed to survive. Yet the story...
Genres: Short/Flash Fiction Collection
Formats: E-Book, Audio, Paperback, Hardback
Age Groups: 18+
Big Rosa rescues unhappy women of the Wild West to work in a helium mine; Georgie Appleseed rescues his failing diner with the help of neon. A silicon son tries to make his gold dad proud, while a scientist tries to make a new St. Francis from calcium bone fragments. Obadiah Toad gives away all his peace with a nickel, but Mamá finally gives away her heart on account of arsenic. These twenty stories explore twenty-two of the elemental forces that underpin all of life… This story collection gestated over a long period of time. “Iron” and “Gold” were the first two stories I drafted, well over a decade ago. At the time I didn’t have any sense that they would be linked by a common theme of an element of the periodic table to each other, much less to another eighteen stories. I can’t remember anymore exactly how the...
Genres: Memoir
Formats: E-Book, Audio, Paperback, Hardback
Age Groups: 18+
I Am a Brave Bridge recounts the Hinlicky family’s move to Svätý Jur, the first town out from Bratislava, in the signal year of 1993 when Slovakia became independent for the first time in its whole long history. While her parents made the move out of a serious commitment to rebuilding the Lutheran church after the recent fall of communism, Sarah had other plans in mind. Her hope was that, after a childhood of feeling vaguely out of place no matter where she went, she’d find her true home in her ancestral land of Slovakia. And sure enough, she fell in love with the place straight away. But that love was greatly enhanced by discovering the added wonders of Slovak boys… who were just as enchanted with the new Američanka as she was with them. Linguistic and cultural barriers, however, guaranteed that the course of Sarah’s romance(s) would run anything...