I grew up the daughter of a writer, Marion Bond West. She’s now a contributing editor for Guideposts and one of the magazine’s most published/most rejected writers. Praying for My Life, her seventh book was published by Guideposts Books in 2006.
As a child, my favorite spot was the library, thanks to Mom. She instilled the love of words way back when. She taught me to feel a story before writing it, almost like playing an instrument by ear. Often, a story moves around inside my heart a long time before I write it.
I began writing on paper in 2001. Two stories stand out in my mind--my first publication and my first story to be published by Guideposts. My first acceptance appeared in Homelife January 2002, "The Hardest Battle,” a story about losing our baby, Robbie. Then I wrote about something I could barely talk about--my year of clinical depression. Guideposts published "Resurrected" in March of 2002.
In 2004, I won a coveted spot to the Guideposts writers workshop.
One of my favorite parts of writing is listening with compassion to write someone's story, or ghostwriting. For people to trust me to write their joy and pain is one of my highest callings. Some of my articles are ghosted, meaning my name won't appear; some are "as told to" articles. I've returned to several Guideposts refresher workshops based on winning entries--a few were stories I ghosted.
Ghostwriting for Guideposts, Angels, PLUS, sober24.com and Sweet 16 is an honor.
I’m a member of the the American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW) and The Writer's View.