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Journalists are taught to begin their stories with attention-grabbing leads, and veteran reporter Kayla Gahagan follows that formula in her debut book.
“The minutes before my daughter …
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Journalists are taught to begin their stories with attention-grabbing leads, and veteran reporter Kayla Gahagan follows that formula in her debut book.
“The minutes before my daughter almost drowns seem ordinary,” read Gahagan’s opening words in “Radical Joy.”
That harrowing experience ended with Gahagan’s daughter alive and well, but it also led the Powell native to rethink her view of motherhood and relationship with God.
“I had a new sense of urgency and desire not to miss what was right in front of me,” she writes. “I experienced the revelation that motherhood is all about the heart, and that it is possible, sweeter, fuller — even on the days that draw me to my knees — to parent with a spirit of joy.”
Gahagan, who now makes her home in Rapid City, South Dakota, hopes her new book encourages and challenges other Christian mothers to look past the busyness and societal pressures and to “experience true joy in motherhood.”
In Gahagan’s own life, she felt God calling her to give up some of the many things that packed her schedule — leading her to stop full-time work and later have her friend take over her clogging studio while she focused on being a mother. Everyone’s journey is different, Gahagan said, and she wants people to listen for their own calling.
“I think there’s this incredible weight on … moms, and dads, too, that you need to be achieving in every single area of your life at the greatest capacity at all times,” she said. “And I think that leads to burnout for so many.”
Instead of trying to do everything all at once, “it’s OK to have different seasons,” she said.
Gahagan got her first taste of first-person writing while interning at the Powell Tribune, penning a regular column.
“My mom said, ‘Oh, you need to put these all in a book,’” Gahagan recalled, but fresh out of high school, she didn’t feel like she had a story to tell. Still, “I think I kind of got the itch then, like, OK maybe there is a book in me,” she said.
After Gahagan became a mother, it became clear she wanted to write about joy, and the topic crystalized in an author school run by Havilah Cunnington. During her four months in the program, Gahagan would often wake at 5 a.m. and write until about 6:30 a.m., spurred by the school’s deadlines and assignments.
“I don’t know if I would have been able to finish had I not had that accountability to push through,” Gahagan laughed, “just because … I have four kids, so carving out writing time more than 30 minutes here or 20 minutes there is a challenge.”
Over the span of 14 months, “Radical Joy” became a reality.
Working as a journalist for the past two decades, Gahagan has told the stories of many people and written for publications ranging from Reuters to The New York Times, but said “the stakes felt so much higher for this book,” she said. “… When you’re writing about your own life, it is very, very vulnerable.”
It’s a shared vulnerability, too, because “Radical Joy” includes numerous anecdotes about her family and friends, with many drawn from her time growing up in Powell. Gahagan made sure to get permission from all of those loved ones — including her parents, who still live in Powell — before sharing their stories in print.
Some of the experiences Gahagan shares in the book were good and others were “really hard,” but she sees all of them as important.
“Wherever you come from and whatever your story is, whatever season you’re in now, that’s part of who you are,” she said. “And God wants to use those things, whether they were good or bad.”
While “Radical Joy” is written directly to mothers, Gahagan believes it’s relevant for anyone who is in any sort of family, whether that’s as a mom, dad, uncle, aunt or grandparent.
Gahagan is coming to Powell this week and will sign copies of “Radical Joy” from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday at Lavender Rose Gift Shop. The reception has been “really good” so far, she said, with the book making onto the shelves of a couple bookstores and Amazon. Demand has been high enough that she’s working to develop a study guide for groups — and some speaking engagements are on her schedule, too.
Meanwhile, her second book is already in the works.
