When my publisher told me they loved my title Broken Smiles and wanted to keep it, I was thrilled. Here’s why.

As many authors will tell you, my story started as a dream. Well . . . that and a semi truck.

Many years ago driving across the dusty desert of Arizona, a large semi truck cut me off,  missing my front bumper by inches. Upon the back gates, a photo of a young girl smiled down at me. I found myself speeding up to stay in the wake of this truck. The Chinese child had a cleft palate and was an advertisement for Operation Smile or Smile Train. Memories flooded into my mind of when I lived in China and held a child just like this one.

“Help me,” the girl seemed to say down to me through the photo.

“How?” I replied. At the time I was beyond broke, driving a car that rattled and sputtered.

“Then tell my story.”

I cried. And then the dreams began. . .

My dream flourished into a song within a dream. It started with two sentences.

“Comfort like a mother’s love when it feels like it’s the end,

Broken Smiles on little faces that only he can mend.”

Okay, great, so I had a mother, a musician, a handsome humanitarian doctor, and a handful of children with Broken Smiles.

Now that my novel is finished, I can focus on answering the plea of this young child’s cry for help by making connections and figuring out the best way to do that.

There’s so much humanitarian work I want to do. My greatest dream would be to live the life that my doctor lives in this novel. I try to do little things now and a season will come when I will answer the call to do more, much more.