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I Have a Doppelganger – Why I Need Your Help

Maggie Wallem Rowe

On Wednesday, May 1, at about 10:58 am ET I hit SEND on the most important email message of my life: the one containing the complete 53,000 word manuscript of the book I’ve been working on for the past two years.


This Life We Share: Journeying Well with God and Others is scheduled to release on May 5, 2020 from NavPress in alliance with Tyndale House Publishers. Thank you for your prayers and for cheering me on throughout the writing process!


Only God could have fulfilled the dream of the little Illinois farmgirl who started writing stories in the early 1960’s and is finally getting published. I’ve always resonated with accounts of women and men starting new careers on the shady side of 65, and maybe this is why. We’re all late bloomers!


I was so nervous, excited and close to tears that I could hardly bring myself to push the button, so Mike grabbed his cell-phone and recorded a brief video we posted on Facebook to share the moment with family and friends. I wish I could share it with you here but it’s too large a file to embed.


The day I submitted the book was also our 43rd wedding anniversary, so we went out to the Grove Park Inn in Asheville to celebrate!


This post, however, is just for my blog readers and will NOT go on social media because I’m really gonna need your help with something the next year.


Let me tell you why.


Some of you know that I have a doppelgänger – defined as a double of a living person – although maybe she would tell you I’m hers as she’s well-known and I most decidedly am not.


Her name is, of course, also Maggie Rowe and she’s a blue-eyed blonde who grew up in a Baptist home in Illinois. She’s also a professional film and TV actress and a writer who released a memoir two years ago called Sin Bravely: My Great Escape from Evangelical Hell.


I have not yet read her book, but we’ve been getting confused for years. When the other Maggie was doing media interviews for her book, producers often tagged me on Twitter (where my account is @MaggieRowe.) I also own the domain name http://www.MaggieRowe.com. More confusion.


I’m sure the other Maggie is a lovely person; we’ve corresponded and she’s invited me to visit her in LA the next time we’re there. I joked that maybe we should go on tour together after her memoir was named an NPR 2017 Best Book of the Year. (If she’s reading this, congratulations to the other Maggie!)


But here’s where it gets dicey. Her publisher made the huge mistake of copywriting her book when it released under my full name: Maggie Wallem Rowe. I’ve asked for it to be corrected and perhaps it has by now, but when I checked the Library of Congress last fall it was still listed under my full name. Big oops.


As you might imagine, This Life We Share will depict a very different view of the Christian faith than Sin Bravely does. I wish the other Maggie all the best, but it’s better for both of us not to have our identities and our work conflated.


Here’s where you can help.


Since you’re reading this, you know that I blog at the website www.MaggieRowe.com. And your comments make a huge difference!


Why? Because due to the mysteries of internet algorithms, social media and blog posts only gain visibility when someone is actually reading and engaging with them.

You will be doing me a big favor if you’ll consider leaving just a brief comment after each post so that I, and my publisher, know you’re out there. You can do it on this site for now, and I’ll be sure to let you know when the new site is ready as I’m planning to do an online giveaway of a big basket of fun products from the Great Smoky Mountains.

You can leave comments of any kind, but here’s a question for you today: what do you appreciate most about this crazily beautiful, painfully difficult, amazingly awesome life that we share?


And what topics can we address in future posts that speak to your needs right now?


I love you, friends.


Thanks for helping the non-famous Maggie out!

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