Kate Braestrup

Kate Braestrup serves as chaplain to the Maine (Game) Warden Service. She is the author of a novel, Onion, and several bestselling memoirs. She has written for O, the Oprah Magazine, the New York Times, More Magazine and the Huffington Post. She lives in Maine with her husband, Simon van der Ven, and their six children. Visit her website here.

ANCHOR AND FLARES: A MEMOIR OF MOTHERHOOD, HOPE AND SERVICE (July 14th, 2015)

Kate Braestrup's life was transformed by the loss of her husband; now Kate faces the possibility that she may lose her son.

As a young mother Kate Braestrup discovered the fierce protectiveness that accompanies parenthood. In the intervening years--through mourning her husband and the joy of remarriage and a blended family-Kate has absorbed the rewards and complications of that spirit. 

But when her eldest son joins the Marines, Kate is at a crossroads: Can she reconcile her desire to protect her children with her family's legacy of service? Can parents balance the joy of a child's independence with the fear of letting go? 

As Kate examines the twinned emotions of faith and fear-inspired by the families she meets as a chaplain and by her son's journey towards purpose and familyhood-she learns that the threats we can't predict will rip us apart and knit us together.

"Kate Braestrup is funny, reflective, and--above all--honest. In Anchor and Flares, she has proven, once again, that she is a writer upon whom nothing is lost, even when her mind is reeling."―Phyllis Theroux, author of Night Lights: Bedtime Stories for Parents in the Dark

"Kate Braestrup is at the very top of her game with Anchor and Flares. She's working to understand the very heart of parenthood--the weave of attachments that make it almost impossible to do what we know we must: let go."―Kelly Corrigan, author of Glitter and Glue and The Middle Place

"Reading Anchor and Flares is like having a fiercely compassionate and comically no-nonsense best friend meandering with you through meditations on faith, war, death, and parenting. Why? Why? Why? Braestrup asks a million times, in a million different ways. Sometimes the answer is courage or grief or hope. But usually it's love."―Catherine Newman, author of Waiting for Birdy

"Sensitive and wholesomely charming, the book is refreshingly free of preachy proselytization and instead addresses the bittersweetness of parenthood and perennial nurturing. Braestrup delivers another appealing, tenderhearted memoir braiding faith and family."―Kirkus

Rights: Little, Brown, North America; Back Bay Books, North America

BEGINNER’S GRACE (2010) 

Prayer is an ancient and simple way to prepare yourself for grace, or love, and to learn to recognize it when it comes. Even the briefest "grace" spoken before dinner offers its time-honored wisdom. Yet in spite of hundreds of traditions and teachings and books about prayer, millions of Americans have become ambivalent about it. They are unsure how, when, where, and even why they might pray, afraid they’ll do it wrong, or worried that they won’t be heard. 

Writing in the beautiful, funny, honest narrative style that moved and inspired readers of her first book, Here If You Need Me, Kate Braestrup explains what prayer is and the many ways we can pray. With an approach that is both personal and inclusive, Beginner’s Grace is a new kind of prayer book. Even if you don’t pray and don’t consider yourself religious, there’s room in this book for you. In these pages, Braestrup explains how and why the practice of prayer can open a space in our busy lives for mindfulness, gratitude, contentment, and a wider compassion toward others. 

Inspired by her work as a chaplain, Braestrup includes many examples of prayers to draw from—beginning with grace, a brief prayer of thanks. She provides clear models and practical suggestions for making your own and your family’s prayers meaningful and satisfying, and offers prayers for situations in which words might fail: times of anxiety, helplessness, or grief. And she invites you to explore forms of prayer that extend into the wider community, including prayer with and for people we don’t like or with whom we disagree.

 A welcoming modern guide to the simplest, most effective way to satisfy a universal spiritual hunger, Beginner’s Grace is for the religious and nonreligious and even irreligious in its generous, good-humored approach to spirituality. With its insight and warmth, Beginner’s Grace is sure to become a spiritual touchstone for people of all faiths.

"Braestrup is astute, entertaining, and scholarly in suggesting prayers from myriad faiths that have served countless generations, including this one. There are prayers for almost every occasion and circumstance: shared meals, birth, death and grief, old age, bedtime for anxious children, safety for those facing daily occupational hazards, even romantic intentions. She invites people to make up their own prayers as she includes tales of frayed nerves, abiding love, and opting for generosity in settings as mundane as the Shop ’N Save. This confirms the comfort and grace afforded by prayer and its power to reveal the beauty of life, warts and all. Amen."–Booklist 

“What books about prayer need most is more authors like Kate Braestrup. There's no false piety here, nor is there much heady analysis either. Instead, there is an exquisitely informative, seductive, largely autobiographical, but no-holds-barred frank, presentation of one chaplain's own engagement with prayer.”—Phyllis Tickle, author of The Great Emergence 

"By often returning to her theme of empathy and consciousness, Braestrup remains a persuasive pastor, praying right through the amen."—Publishers Weekly, starred review

Rights: Free Press, North America