New Book Coming Soon!

 

I am so excited to let you know that Shirley Crowder and I just signed a contract with Entrusted Books (an arm of Write Integrity Books) to co-write another devotional book! The book will release sometime next year, most likely in the fall of 2023. I will share more about it over the next few months. For now I'm thrilled to be starting a new writing project. That is like play for me. :) 

Welcome 2018!

I love the look of fresh fallen snow ... as long as I am safely inside a warm house when I'm looking at it. Growing up in Africa, snow took some getting used to but I have grown to love it (as long as I don't have to drive in it.)

As a writer, seeing a scene like this pulls at me the way a blank page does--it almost begs for me to venture out there and leave my mark.

2017 was a busy year for my writing endeavors and 2018 looks to be just as busy. Here's what it looks like so far:

Magazines:
I have three articles coming out it "The War Cry" (Salvation Army's magazine) in 2018, the first being in January. I will author articles in several issues of SEEK in 2018, and The Secret Place, and those are the ones I have already been contracted for. Hopefully there will be others too.

Blogs:
Along with keeping up two blogs of my own, I will be guest blogging on Inspired Prompts Blog, as well as occasionally contributing to my publisher's blog: Write Integrity Press

Books:
I will have at least one new book released in 2018--an anthology compiled by my friend Shirley Crowder and me. I will say more about that in the days to come. At the moment we are working feverishly to have the finished manuscript to our publisher by mid-Feb. We are hoping for a summer release. Shirley and I are also working on some other book ideas and hope to make more announcements in the days to come about those. And a manuscript I co-wrote with my husband is currently under consideration by an large, traditional, press. I will share more about that if and when we know more. For now suffice it to say that this is a book we have poured our hearts and lives into and we covet your prayers that God will see us through the publishing process and land it with the right publisher.

Teaching/ Speaking:
I am excited to have been asked to teach two workshops at the Kentucky Christian Writers Conference in June. Though that seems like a long time away, the committee has been working hard for some time to put together a great conference and I am humbled and honored to have been asked serve on the faculty this year.

Lessons from the Trail--Part 2

By 2010, the writer in me had come alive. I don’t know if writing was something that lay dormant and finally hatched, a treasure God buried deep inside of me that He finally revealed, or if it was born a fresh, but whatever the case, it had become alive and active by this time. And I had found an outlet for my writing in freelancing small pieces which I began doing regularly.

 

The serendipity? I had a growing list of writing credits, some cash coming in from articles and devotions, and a slowly growing platform. But I still saw no hope of ever securing a book contract for my manuscript. So it sat on the shelf, in the forms of a hand-written notebook and a word document on my computer.

 

In the spring of 2011, I saw a contest for unpublished manuscripts and entered mine. It was the 2011 “Women of Faith” contest. Out of over 750 entries, mine was named as one of only 30 finalists. However it was not the winner and the winner received a book contract. So, other than giving me a sense of accomplishment, it did not change my reality. My manuscript was still on the shelf.

 

Last spring I attended a writer’s conference for children’s writers, even though I do not write for children. I attended to help my sister, a budding children’s writer, get her feet into the writing waters. At the conference I met Tracy Ruckman, owner of Write Integrity Press and Pix-N-Pens Press, Tracy publishes children’s books as well as all sorts of other genres. Though we had not met in person before, I knew her already via the web, because I had submitted a story to her, which she used in one of her anthologies.

 

As we talked, she asked about my writing and then asked me to send the first three chapters of my manuscript. A few weeks later, she asked for the entire manuscript and then to my incredible joy, said she wanted to publish it under PixNPens, the nonfiction side of her company.

 

So today, I am able to enjoy all kinds of writing. On the freelancing side, I now have over a hundred and fifty published pieces. (I’d have to stop and count but I know I have 100 published devotions, give or take a few, and probably close to 50 articles and stories.) I speak to women’s groups, and lead workshops at writing conferences on freelancing and devotional writing. I have two books coming out this fall, “Prayer, It’s Not About You” and “Glimpses of the Savior”, a seasonal devotional I co-wrote with childhood friend, Shirley Crowder. And I am 40,000+ words into my first novel.

 

God has been good to me!