Knapp was approached in January 2001 by an editor who’d read an article she had written for the magazine Christianity Today. “My story was about struggling to find my artistic voice. He wondered if I could expand on the concept,” she says. “Two years later, the book was done.”

The timing was right, she says. “I feel like you get to a certain point in your life where you just give up and find yourself surrendering to your own style.” Knapp’s style is laden with self-deprecation; her sense of humor about herself and her family is in full force. What’s absent seems to be the self-righteous, holier-than-thou stuff frequently found in the usual legend-in-my-own-mind froth.

“One of the stories that I kind of like is about my fear of driving by myself on the highway,” she says. “It was embarrassing to write, but a number of people have come up and said, ‘me too.’ I guess it’s that kind of connection that has drawn people to the book.”

Knapp’s book, sold at Ukrop’s, local bookstores and on Amazon.com, has become a hot choice of Richmond book clubs. Knapp will read and sign book at the Ashland Public Library Sept. 17 at 7 p.m., and at Barnes & Noble, Libbie Place, Sept. 18 at 7 p.m. — Elizabeth Cogar