Susan Gregg Gilmore's fourth novel, The Curious Calling of Leonard Bush (Blair), will be released August 25.

Although her artist mother bought Gilmore her first easel and box of paints when she was five, it was her father's love of family storytelling that captured her attention.

Gilmore knew at an early age that she wanted to write but was first drawn to journalism not fiction. While at the University of Virginia, she wrote for the student paper, The Cavalier Daily.

Later, while raising her three daughters, she joined the staff of The Chattanooga News Free Press as a features writer and columnist. After relocating to Southern California, she regularly freelanced for The Los Angeles Times and Christian Science Monitor.

Her first novel, Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen, was a USA TODAY and AMAZON bestseller and is rooted in summer vacations spent with her paternal grandmother and grandfather, a revival-bred preacher, who after church on Sundays, always took his granddaughters to the Dairy Queen.

Gilmore currently lives in Chattanooga with her husband, Dan.