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Wednesday, November 2, 2011 Orono Weekly Times - 7 AUTHORS Continued from pg 5 Dutch immigrants working as farm labourers, saving money to one day buy a farm of their own. They form friendships, tackle language barriers, and grapple with cultural and religious differences, but it is the moral questions they face that prove the most challenging. "I experienced a lot of the stuff, not in my own personal life, but as an elder in the Church for many, many years," says Borger of the events that transpire in The Crooked Road, and then come to a head in its sequel, The Dam Breaks. Borger emigrated to Canada from the Netherlands in 1957, with his wife Daly. He obtained his B.A. degree in 1964 from Calvin College, Grand Rapids, MI and began an 18-year career as a teacher and principal of Christian Elementary Schools, before he changed his occupation to become a Quality Assurance Manager, introducing the statistical method in several factories. Borger says he was inspired in his writing by the work of Chris Irwin, a Christian author from St. Catharine's. "He wrote a series about a minister, and to me that was really factual life," he says. "In a lot of what they call Christian novels, the characters get in trouble and they pray and everything is hunky dory. Life is not that way. I tried to avoid that in my books." Borger admits he shares some personality traits with the main character, Gary Van denBerg. "My [second] wife Pat read it, and she said, `Definitely Gary's like you: a penny-pincher.' And some of those things that happened 50 years ago, I was mad about them, just like Gary," he says. "They wouldn't happen here today. Back then women " couldn't even vote in the Church, now they can be ministers." But unlike his main character, Borger did not struggle to be faithful in his marriage. "In that sense, I'm not like Gary. I was married 48 years to my first wife with no infi- I hope that somebody else may be strengthened by it in their faith." ~ Andy Borger Newcastle author Loyal Printing Ltd. "Everything with the printed word" · Business Cards· Forms · Letterhead · Laminating · Envelopes · Booklets 5310 Main St., Orono L0B 1M0 · 905-983-5301 delity," he says. In fact it was his grief over the death of Daly in 2004 that prompted Borger to start writing again, a hobby he had given up years before. "Some of the poems deal with her sickness and her death," he explains of the faith-filled poems. "The first seven are about her illness. Most were written after she passed away." What resulted was Poetry from the Heart, a collection of poems he self-published in 2009. He says it was only after he received encouragement from friends, and especially from Pat, that he decided to publish the poems. "I published them because I hope that somebody else may be strengthened by it in their faith. The books are somewhat like that too, in that they are Christian books." He says he does not measure his success by the number of books he sells, but rather the impact they have on his readers. The feedback he got from his poetry book was especially satisfying, he says, particularly a letter from one reader which told how the poems spoke to her "on a spiritual level." He is working on a third novel, about a family living on a farm on the Dutch/German border, and their son, who emigrates to Canada. Borger published The Crooked Road earlier this year, and The Dam Breaks will be released in two weeks. Both novels and his poetry book can be ordered by contacting the author at: aborger@rogers.com or phoning 905-419-2066. While he thinks that his books will be of particular appeal to people with a Dutch Calvinist background, and those in the 60-plus age group, he says younger readers have enjoyed the stories too, as have those of different religious backgrounds. "I gave The Crooked Road to a Roman Catholic friend to read. He was born Canadian, with an Irish background, and he loved it. I was surprised," says Borger, with a laugh. Reduce · Reuse Recycle