Valerie Schultz is a freelance writer, journalist, columnist for The Bakersfield Californian , and a contributing writer to the Jesuit publication America and the daily prayer book Give Us This Day . Her essays and short stories have appeared in The Los Angeles Times , The Washington Post , and the Chicago Tribune , as well as in Catholic publications such as US Catholic , Commonweal , Human Development , and The National Catholic Reporter . Her books include Closer : Musings on Intimacy, Marriage, and God (2008), Overdue: A Dewey Decimal System of Grace (2019) and A Hill of Beans: The Grace of Everyday Troubles (2021).