Jolina Petersheim, bestselling fiction novelist, to speak on Cumberlands’ campus

Highly-acclaimed author Jolina Petersheim will be hosting a book signing on March 26 at 5:00 p.m. in the Correll Lecture Hall on University of the Cumberlands’ campus. Petersheim, who graduated from Cumberlands in 2008, will be discussing her upcoming novel How the Light Gets In.

How the Light Gets In is Peterhsheim’s fifth novel, set to release this month. Already receiving substantial reviews from other authors – Francine Rivers, among others – this novel is a modern retelling of the Bible story of Ruth set in a cranberry bog in Wisconsin. Books will be available at the event.

Petersheim’s books have been highlighted in several bestseller lists, including ECPA, CBA and Amazon Bestseller. She was featured in Huffington Post’s Fall Picks, USA Today, Publishers Weekly and The Tennessean. Her books have also received awards such as the INSPY Award for Speculative Fiction. Her non-fiction writings have been featured in Reader’s Digest, Writer’s Digest, Christian Woman and Proverbs 31 Ministries. 

Jolina (Miller) Petersheim was born in the heart of Amish Country, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania but moved to Tennessee when she was three. She graduated from South Haven Christian School. When Petersheim was 16, she was on a family trip driving through southern Kentucky, and a local gas station clerk encouraged her to check out what was then Cumberland College.

She attended the school, double majoring in Communication Arts and English with an emphasis on creative writing. Petersheim became the first person in her immediate family to purse higher education. She participated in the student paper and became a student editor for a literary journal. Her success at Cumberlands was acknowledged at graduation when she received the Berger Award. She now resides in the mountains of Tennessee with her husband and three young daughters.