A reading from the novel
NORWAY VALLEY
by Barbara Jurgensen
A romance set at St. Olaf College during World War II:

        They reached the Ole Store and found a table in the back. After they ordered crullers and strong, hot Norwegian coffee, Rolf said, "Look, Mari, I'll come right to the point. All fall I've watched you going here and there with that young Viking, what's his name?"

        "Kerm,” she said.

        "With Kerm,” he went on, "and he's not right for you."

        She looked at him. "So what are you suggesting?"

        She noticed a small smile playing over his face, unlike any previous expression. What did it mean?

        "I'm suggesting that you spend a little time with me,” he said, and reached across the table for her hand.

        She almost stopped breathing. Was he just toying with her, on the rebound?

        Did he just want to show Sonya that she wasn't the only one who had someone else?

        Or was he serious?

        Now he looked into her eyes with such warmth that she felt like she was seeing her whole  future, drawing her forward, calling her to let her dreams, all of her dreams, come true.

Barbara Jurgensen says that her claim to fame (according to her then-young children) is that she got to award all the trophies at the end of the stock car racing season in Minot, North Dakota. She later served as an inner city pastor in Chicago, and then as the first ordained woman professor at Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Columbus, Ohio.

She currently gardens, helps students with their master's theses and doctoral dissertations, and writes for various publications.  

Her three children live in Portland, OR; Boston, MA; and Galesburg, IL (near the Mississippi River) -- West Coast, East Coast, and Middle Coast, giving her lots of frequent flyer miles .

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