About Colleen Carroll Campbell
Colleen Carroll Campbell is an award-winning author, print and broadcast journalist and former presidential speechwriter. Her books include her critically acclaimed journalistic study, The New Faithful; her spiritual memoir, My Sisters the Saints, which won two national awards and has been published in five languages; and her award-winning newest release, The Heart of Perfection: How the Saints Taught Me to Trade My Dream of Perfect for God’s, which has also been published abroad. Colleen has written for the New York Times, Washington Post, Christianity Today, America, and National Review, and appeared on CNN, FOX News, MSNBC, ABC News, PBS, NPR and EWTN, where she hosted her own television and radio shows for eight years. A former speechwriter for President George W. Bush and editorial writer and op-ed columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Colleen is the recipient of two honorary doctorates and numerous other awards and fellowships. She speaks to audiences worldwide and lives on the central coast of California with her husband and their four children, whom she homeschools. Learn more at www.colleen-campbell.com.
Why A Better Homeland?
I’ve served as a regular columnist or contributor for dozens of newspapers and magazines over the years (full story here), but as my family grew and homeschooling became part of our story, I’ve had to focus my increasingly precious writing time on books and speeches rather than columns and articles. While I don’t miss the daily grind, I do miss having that regular connection to readers and standing platform for stories and ideas unsuited to the shallows of social media. Sometimes I deliver a keynote address that listeners urge me to publish but that doesn’t seem to fit into the usual media boxes. Other times I see a news story that cries out for analysis from a fresh angle no one else is exploring. Often I’m laboring over a manuscript that contains a short story or essay nugget I wish I could share with you now, not years down the road when my book is finally in print. It’s at these times that I miss having my own column. It’s for these times that I’ve joined Substack.
As for the name, well, that’s the end game of all my writing these days. I want to help my readers—and myself—focus on that “better homeland, the heavenly one” (Heb. 11:16) that puts all our earthly questions and struggles into perspective. Whatever topics I’m tackling—faith and culture, nature and technology, parenthood and prayer, education and evangelization, the saints and beauty—I try to put Bernard of Clairvaux’s famous question at the fore: What is this in light of eternity?
Why subscribe?
I hope you’ll subscribe so you can get these occasional essays and stories delivered to your inbox and find some insights and inspiration to help you on your journey. Subscribing is also a way of letting me know that something I’ve written has added value to your life and you’d like to see more. That’s something we ink-stained wretches never tire of hearing. And don’t worry about inbox overload—subscribers to this newsletter heard from me about once a year on my last platform. I’m hoping to communicate more often here, but given the length of my to-do list and number of unread books spilling off my nightstand, there’s not much danger of me inundating you. I’m too inundated myself!
