Normal Lives: President Jimmy Carter and His Church

Harlan, Christi: - Christi Harlan is the author of Normal Lives: Jimmy Carter and His Washington Church and the companion book, Mr. President, The Class Is Yours: Jimmy Carter's Sunday School Lessons in Washington, D.C. She is a writer and communications consultant in Washington, D.C. During a 20-year career as a reporter, her articles appeared on the front pages of the Wall Street Journal, the Dallas Morning News and the Austin American-Statesman. After newspapers, she held top communications jobs at the Senate Banking Committee, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board. Beginning with Hurricane Katrina, Christi spent six years as a volunteer and consultant in disaster public affairs with the American Red Cross, providing media interviews and writing eyewitness accounts of the Red Cross's response to hurricanes, ice storms, flooding and the deadly tornadoes in Enterprise, Alabama, and Joplin, Missouri.A native of Manhattan, Kansas, Christi attended junior and senior high school in Houston and earned a bachelor's degree in journalism and English from Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas. She was accepted to the Knight Fellowship in Law for Journalists and earned a Master of Studies in Law from Yale Law School.In August 1993, Christi joined the First Baptist Church of the City of Washington, D.C., where her journalistic skills of taking notes and writing suited the jobs of church clerk and volunteer communications director. She is owned by two cats who think every computer screen is occupied by magical nests of squirrels.