From A Word From Amy:

“But writing about God never feels as honest nor as honoring as writing to Him.”

Amy developed her unique style of writing directly to God while writing her first book, In The Bosom of Abraham.

In one way, this is a daring move - after all, who writes to God? (And even more daring, writes what they hear back from God?!)

But in another way, this is just recovering a style of writing familiar to many Christians of old, since the Catholic mystics (Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, Madame Guyon, and others) frequently addressed God directly in their writings.

Amy actually wrote Runaway Bay three times, the first two times in a much more standard narrative style. She once told me, “The first time was just to get the facts of the story down, and the second time was me processing my feelings about my relationship with my dad. The third time, I was ready to write for other readers.” I thought her writing was great both of the first two times, but these versions were never completed and Amy wasn’t satisfied with them. It was in January 2025 when she excitedly told me, “I think I found the key to finishing Runaway Bay! I will write it to God, like I did with my Abraham book.” And she was off and running … and now you’re reading the results of that epiphany.

The foreword of In the Bosom of Abraham was written by her good friend, Rabbi Dr. Mark Kinzer. I think a few selections from his explanation of Amy’s style could be helpful in reading Runaway Bay, as well (highlights mine):

What sort of book is this that now rests in your hands, or scrolls on your screen?

A biblical meditation on a portion of Scripture? Yes, but of a peculiar sort. Most biblical meditations address the reader directly, and offer their insights on the text as a guide to its riches. In these pages we are invited instead to listen in on thoughts and questions about the story of Abraham, directed not to us but to the God of Abraham. The immediate audience for these meditations is the One who is a character in that story, the inspirer of the text the text that recounts the story, and the Father of the Messiah who will bring the story to completion.

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Does this mean that we are reading an extended prayer? Yes, but a prayer of an unusual sort. Like the theological writings of Augustine or Anselm which are offered in the form and posture of prayer, Cogdell practices exegesis in the presence of God. She asks questions about the story of Abraham and offers possible answers to them, as one who is not really addressing the questions to herself or to the text, but instead to the One who alone can truly answer them.

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By publishing these meditative expository prayers, Cogdell invites us to share her wonder, and to connect to Abraham and Abraham’s God, in the same way that she has.