Many years ago during my season as a young mother, I felt a deep longing for older women mentors. If those mentors were writers, all the better. Unfortunately, I didn’t know other wordsmiths at the time and felt isolated by my longing for people who could speak to me about art, faith, and the importance of family.

Fortunately, I one day stumbled upon Madeleine L’Engle’s Crosswicks journals, written from her great farmhouse “of charming confusion” in Connecticut. As the Newbery Award winner of A ...