I started writing when I was in the first grade. My first ‘published’ piece was a poem put on the bulletin board and displayed on Parents Night.
See the snowflakes fall,
Down
Down
Down they come
Light, but very cold –
I must be bold, to go out in the snow.

I didn’t know what bold meant, but the word sounded like it belonged. I’ve been a writer ever since.

I wrote in high school about teenage tragedy and triumph. I wrote as a young mother, trying to stay sane under a mountain of diapers and a broken dryer. (Yes, clothes do freeze-dry at 40 below). I wrote after my first husband passed away and I was left with three small children. I wrote away despair and anger at God, and later wrote about  how strong I really was.

I never got paid to write until I won a Guideposts writing contest. Since then I’ve published magazine articles, excerpts in books, and two of my own: a historical novel based on the removal of the Ute Indians from southwest Colorado, and a non-fiction book of devotionals for working women.

But I don’t write for money. I write for the love of words. I write to clear my head of all the stuff that clogs up my brain, and my heart.

And I write to give thanks to my Heavenly Father who has walked beside me for sixty years. He has guided me through storms, and sang with me at sunset. And that, my friends, is priceless.