Featured Genius: Meet Jacqlyn and Lissa Part 2

Lissa Belcher (left) and Jacqlyn Belcher (right) circa 1976). Sitting together at a table playing scrabble. An early love of words is evident.

Today's interview is Part 2 of a two-part series featuring sisters and authors. Having recently published their first book together and with sequels planned and in progress, they let me into their world.

Apr 21, 2026 7 min read

Jacqlyn Belcher Crosby and Lissa Belcher Murray

An Every Day Genius Interview

This week, we continue the interview with sisters Jacqlyn and Lissa.

In case you missed it, start here:

Jacqlyn and I met online when she messaged me on Facebook asking to use a poem I wrote in a book they were writing. Jacqui later introduced me to her counterpart, Lissa, and while we haven't known each other long, I can feel the "kindred" in our spirits.

Jacqlyn Belcher Crosby and Lissa Belcher Murray are the authors of The Piper and the Prophecy, a work of historical fiction that connects families across time and circumstance.

In this interview, we go backstage for part 2, behind the scenes into the very lives of the two women that brought much of themselves into the book.

This is a two-part series as the addition of a second person increased the length considerably. Watch for the second part to publish next week.

Our voices will be named but also differentiated by text type.

Michele Jennae: BOLD
Jacqlyn: Regular type
Lissa: Italics

The Interview - continued

6. What do you see as your top 1-3 strengths?

Michele Jennae: What do you see as your top 1-3 strengths? Can you give a brief example when you most use each strength?

Jacqlyn: My husband says my greatest strength is my ability to express mercy and justice. Truth and honesty are important to me since they are the cornerstones of life. Base your life on something besides these things, and you are on shaky ground. However, justice without mercy leaves us a little cold. As a teacher and a parent, I needed to be able to clearly state the problem and then suggest ways to move past the situation. A life without boundaries isn't safe, and a life without mercy isn't kind.

One blessing from our mountain upbringing is that Mom, Dad and our grandparents taught us to be independent and to hold ourselves responsible. Life is too short to play the victim. And the book 'The Power of Now' only cemented how to live beyond victimhood. I never really understood or had a lot of sympathy for whiners.

Michele Jennae: Jacqlyn, you expressed something I work with daily. I help people see the power that lies in the middle ground between things like justice and mercy. We’ve been oriented to either/or thinking and it’s really both/and.

What about you, Lissa?

Lissa: I am driven. When I feel that something is worth doing, I will see it through to the end. Finishing this book is something that I was driven to do. I care for people. Jaqlyn and I both left jobs in the public school to create a space where students could be given a chance to learn in a safe and creative environment. I taught in a Native American school for nine years. We went to be a blessing to the people we worked with and ended up receiving more from the community than we could have ever given. I have always tried to be available to help in any way.

Michele Jennae: Isn’t it funny how giving opens us to receiving, ideally? Another paradox that looks for a middle ground of power.

Lissa: I am positive. I have always been a glass half full kind of person. I think this trait has been helpful in many of my endeavors: starting the school with Jaqlyn, moving to Rapid City, working through my health issues as well as those of my parents, and finally finishing this book.

7. Do you have a WHY?

Michele Jennae: Do you have a WHY? A burning mission to show up in the world and contribute? Tell me about your WHY and your HOW?

Jacqlyn: Once again my faith leads me to be a part of what I deem as the greatest magic show on earth: life. Sometimes I am the voyeur of this magic, and sometimes I choose to be the magician, dropping clues all around me so my students or grandchildren could discover them. I want one small part of the world to be sane, loving, honest, funny, beautiful, and poignant. If I want this, then I am the one responsible to make sure it happens.

Billy Jack, a movie from the 70s, changed both our lives. We sat beside each other in the theater. And after that, an inside fire to make things better is still burning bright. I am a cause-driven person and need to make things better.

Lissa: I have always wanted to change my world. That is why I became a high school teacher and a youth leader at our church. My burning mission is to live out my faith by loving God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength and loving my neighbor as myself. I try to do this by being present in people's lives and sharing the everyday magic in the world around us.

8. What does your best possible future self look like?

Michele Jennae: What does your best possible future self look like? Give an example of a future scenario.

Lissa: Healthy, having adventures with my family, and writing. Renting a cottage somewhere in the Highlands of Scotland, working on a novel, and taking time for breathtaking excursions with my family.

Jacqlyn: Funny, I thought this was my future self. LHL. <light hearted laughter> Best possible self probably lives in a Scottish cottage on a pretty piece of Scottish Highlands. A collie sits out by the front door, and a “heiland coo” pretty much wanders around as he wants. But realistically, my best possible self looks healthier and stronger.

Michele Jennae: I just love those heiland coos! <best Scottish accent> And health and adventure, strength, travel, creativity and family! Those aren’t small things. And in a sense, you already are your future selves. Living into it now is what matters.

9. What obstacles will you have to overcome?

Michele Jennae: What obstacles will you have to overcome? What might present itself inside you and in the world to challenge you in pursuing your dreams?

Jacqlyn: I am my greatest obstacle. Getting out of my own way is what I always have to overcome. And for me, I have to get down to the nitty gritty of what needs to change and what that change will require. Then I focus in and move forward.

Michele Jennae: I can relate.

Lissa: My health would have to improve which is something that I am working on. Getting my family all together at one place and time would be a logistical nightmare.

Michele Jennae: We are all allowing space for small miracles and large ones.

10. What one AMA question would you like to answer?

Michele Jennae: Thank you both! Final question: If you were hosting an AMA (Ask Me Anything Session), what is the one question you'd hope someone would ask, and what is your answer?

Jacqlyn: I would hope they ask: Tell me something wonderful about your kids and grandkids:

And this is what I would say…

Jerry: (spouse) Jerry is willing to grow. I don't think I could be with someone who saw no need in personal growth. Summer: (daughter) She is rainbows, storms, wind, and warmth in one dynamic package. I swear that magic lives in her. She's our first child. Dustin: (son) He is everything solid and ephemeral on the earth. I swear that balance lives in him. He's our baby.

Ayden: (grandson) Ayden let us practice grandparenthood on him since he was the first grandkid. We all passed with flying colors. Now he's just one of my most favourite people on this planet. Jack: (grandson) There's so many things this guy is. But to me, he is my heart.

Graeme: (grandson) He is John Greenleaf Whittier's 'Barefoot Boy'. It's as if the sun lives inside of him and illuminates him. Augustine: (grandson) I kept this note he wrote to his mom about coming over to our house one day. My heart is always near to bursting when I read it: "Guess who I'm going to see today? Hers gots long hair. Hers has play dough and crayons. Her loves me!"

Iris: (granddaughter): Iris is everything snarky, goth, creative, and lovely. The 'dodo bird' comment in the novel was what she said when her cat died. She was only 7. What a character she is. Sundance: (great niece/granddaughter) She is Van Gogh in a sea of Monets.

Lissa: My question would be: Where did you get ideas for the storyline and characters in The Piper and the Prophecy?

Woven into the fiction of the book, are candid glimpses into mine and Jaqlyn’s real life. The people, places. And adventures are bits and pieces of what has made our lives so magical. The visible spiritual thread that runs throughout the book comes from our own strong faith and our belief that God is the source of all true magic.

Michele Jennae: Lissa, you echo Jacqlyn’s emphasis on people and places. I don’t think a book is written that doesn’t include the author and the intimacies of their lives in some way.

Thank you for sharing your Genius with us!

Jaqlyn: Michele, one of the returns on this huge project is that we met you. I feel like I have known you forever. Like didn’t we teach together? Go to camp?

Michele Jennae: We must have. <giggle> And one day, we'll meet again!