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Wednesday, June 27, 2007

About Me

Hi everyone,

I'm very excited that The Ink Ladies invited me to join this blogging team. Our founder, Marcia, assigned a day for each of us to blog. Mine is Wednesday.

Here is some information about me in the writing world. I've been writing commercially since the mid 80s. Many of my 900-odd published credits come from working first as a writer, then as an editor for four different regional LDS newspapers. However, I also have managed to publish short stories, columns, and poems as well as two Western novels, The Man from Shenandoah and Ride to Raton. One of my poems won two state competitions and went on to win the national Alice Abel Literature Competition in Poetry. I also contributed to two non fiction books on writing and publishing.

I was the editor and publisher of a newsletter for writers and a small magazine: Aztec Peak and WestWard Quarterly, The Magazine of Family Reading. The latter is now edited by Shirley Anne and Richard Leonard and published by an arm of their Christian ministry, Laudemont Press.

I work with other writers as a mentor, creative consultant, editor, workshop presenter, contest judge, coach, and teacher. In 1986 I founded American Night Writers Association (ANWA), a network for LDS women writers, and was the facilitator of the group for many years. I served as the first President, and now am serving as the Membership Secretary and Webmistress.

I taught creative writing at Irving School and newspaper writing at Carmel Charter School. I got a big charge out of reading my work at Yavapai College and the Sharlot Hall Museum in Prescott, Arizona. Now I'm working on completing the third Owen Family novel, and finishing another novel set in Arizona in the 1890s.

I am a member of Western Writers of America, LDStorymakers, Romance Writers of America, and American Night Writers Association.

I hope you'll visit my website: MarshaWard.com, my personal blog: Writer in the Pines, and another blog I participate in: ANWA's Founder & Friends.

Whew! What an info dump! See you next Wednesday with a much less egocentric post.

8 comments:

Robyn Heirtzler said...

Great to hear from you! I've also worked for newspapers as staff writer and managing editor for two southern Utah papers. I don't even know how many articles I wrote for them. Now I get to stay home, write an occasional article and do all the publications for the local chamber of commerce. What fun!! I'll definitely check out your site.
Where are you from? I'm speaking to a Night Writers group here in Cedar City this weekend and just wondered if it was connected in some way.

Tamra Norton said...

Marsha, Marsha, Marsha! (Do you hate that by now?) :) We are so happy you're here! A year or so ago I bought my dad (a HUGE fan of westerns) Marsha's books and he said they were as good, if not better, than Louis L'Amour! YAY Marsha!

Marsha Ward said...

Hi Robyn,

I saw the Night Writers' speaking engagement on your website and wondered who they are. We don't have a chapter there, but one former member lives in Cedar. The lady I mentioned before who lives in Enoch, she was a member in the early 90s. I don't know if she's still alive. Neat lady. A poet, IIRC.

Marsha Ward said...

LOL! Tami, if that still bothered me, I'd be a mass of nerves and unfit for human companionship. There are much more serious things in life to get upset over.

Thanks for the welcome. I'm so glad your dad liked my books. BTW, women enjoy them, too. So do grandmas, teenagers, and even my kids--at least, the ones who have read them. [chuckle]

Oh, Robyn, I live in Central Arizona, just under what Zane Grey called the Tonto Rim, which is actually the Mogollon Rim that slices through Arizona and New Mexico. I'm originally from the Phoenix area.

Marcia Mickelson said...

I get the "Marcia, Marcia, Marcia" comment too; only mine is spelled differently. A lot of people spell my name the way yours is spelled.

Tamra Norton said...

Funny! I've been pronouncing Marcia's name, Mar-SEE-ya all this time. My friend Marcia McClure who's also an LDS writer says it that way.

Stephanie Black said...

Marsha, wow! What an awesome list of writing credits you have! I am very impressed.

Marsha Ward said...

That's funny, Marcia, because I still get people who don't know me well spelling my name your way!

Oddly enough, my next door neighbor is Marcia [mar-see-ya], and we both were born in the same month of the same year.

Thanks, Stephanie. Sometimes I look at the list and think, 'Did I really do all that? Where did I get the energy?' I guess I'm slowing down a bit. LOL!