My name is Christie Purifoy. I am a writer and gardener. I love to grow flowers and community. Most of all, I am a placemaker, and the place I am making with my family is a red brick Victorian farmhouse in Pennsylvania called Maplehurst.
My first book Roots and Sky: A Journey Home in Four Seasons was published by Revell in 2016. My most recent book, Placemaker: Cultivating Places of Comfort, Beauty, and Peace, released from Zondervan in 2019.
In 2010, I received a PhD in English Literature from the University of Chicago. A few years later I traded the classroom for a picket-fenced garden and an old writing desk. Today, I grow zucchini my four children refuse to eat. The zucchini-loving chickens are perfectly happy with this arrangement.
I believe that life, in all its pain and beauty and mystery, is a journey of love. Writing keeps my eyes wide-open to this astonishing reality.
I share story-driven conversations with Lisa-Jo Baker every Wednesday on the Out of the Ordinary podcast.
In March, I’ll be launching the Black Barn Garden Club, an online community for aspiring gardeners. Find out more here.
And every month, the Black Barn Collective, the community rooted here at the Maplehurst Black Barn, sends out a digital care package called Paper&String. Subscriptions open February 1!