In this episode, Belinda Pollard, Donita Bundy and Alison Joy interview Lisa Stilwell, a veteran of Christian publishing. She rose to the position of senior acquisitions editor with major Christian publishing houses, and then moved into authoring devotionals and ghostwriting memoir for Christian leaders and people from the music industry.

Don’t forget to like and subscribe to the podcast! And go to gracewriters.com for show notes, transcript, useful links and factsheets, and to connect with our online community.

Episode summary:

• How Lisa first moved into writing, unexpectedly, after stepping down from her long career as an acquisitions editor to care for her husband who had Parkinson’s.
• The initial uncertainty Lisa felt about her ability to write, despite so many years of working with words, and her tips for others who long to write but are not sure if they have the ability.
• How Lisa sets herself deadlines, which helped her cope by establishing a sense of routine during the years of caring for her husband.
• Counting back from the deadline to work out how much needs to be written per day, but also allowing grace for when things don’t go to plan.
• How Lisa – reluctantly at first! – moved into ghostwriting. Lisa hadn’t ghostwritten before and thought the timing was wrong for her to work on this project because her husband had just moved to hospice, but God knew what He was doing.
• The process of being selected to work with Helen Smallbone, mother of singers Rebecca St James and the duo For King & Country.
• The gentle and respectful process for Lisa of working with Helen Smallbone, welcomed into the home, and guiding Helen regarding how much she asked her children vs her own memories of what happened.
• How to set word count targets relevant to the project, and stick to them.
• Connection and trust as the core of a relationship when ghostwriting someone’s memoir. Having the courage and skill to ask probing questions, while respecting the person’s right not to answer.
• You have to write in their voice, not your own. Listen constantly, for key phrases and the pace of their speech, for formal vs casual expression, for seriousness vs humour and how the two moods interact.
• Transcribing interview recordings is a painful task, but it’s a process where you can really absorb elements of the story and see what extra questions you need to ask.
• Protecting yourself, because ghostwriting is draining work.
• The initially rocky and then smooth road to getting The Heavens Proclaim His Glory published – a coffee table book with Hubble telescope images combined with excerpts from authors and pastors Lisa had worked with across her editing career.
• How Lisa worked her way up to the senior position of Acquisitions Editor.

In this episode, Belinda Pollard, Donita Bundy and Alison Joy interview Kelly Needham – podcaster, mother of five, women’s minister and author of PURPOSEFOOLED and FRIEND-ISH. Kelly has a personal, powerful and honest message about how to resist the pressures popular culture puts on our writing goals, and where and how to find contentment.

Don’t forget to like and subscribe to the podcast! And go to gracewriters.com for show notes, transcript, useful links and factsheets, and to connect with our online community.

Episode summary:

• How Kelly’s first non-fiction book about friendship emerged organically from a ten-year journey of blogging about a topic important to her, and for which she couldn’t find the right book.
• The process of converting blog posts to a book – it ended up forming an outline rather than the actual content.
• The relief of getting the book out of her, and the process of choosing a publishing path: traditional vs self-publishing.
• Finding a literary agent, and choosing one who connected with her project.
• Finding a publisher who cared about the content and was invested in it.
• How Kelly’s existing marketing platform on her blog and social media was appealing to a publisher, but also not necessarily a huge platform.
• Finding the balance between making sales – which does matter a little bit, partly because it shows us what people need – vs having an enduring impact on the lives of individual people.
• Why chasing our dreams is unsatisfying, and yet we will still do it.
• Giving ourselves the freedom to “fail” as writers.
• False narratives from popular culture about what successful writing looks like, and how we can counter those by intentionally being good stewards of our minds.
• How to cope when our achievements don’t match our goals, and when we get post-partum depression after publishing a book.
• How much Kelly struggled with writing her first book, and how much we should be encouraged that we persevered through that.
• The value of making great Art as Christians.

Belinda Pollard, Donita Bundy and Alison Joy celebrate four years of the podcast with another classic episode, AM I CALLED TO WRITE? – a question that confronts and confuses many Christian writers. We discuss ways to discern calling and strategies to help us choose who we listen to as we decide the way forward.

Don’t forget to like and subscribe to the podcast! And go to gracewriters.com for show notes, transcript, useful links and factsheets, and to connect with our online community.

Episode summary:

• The value of partnering with God in our work, whatever it may be.
• Everyone’s story of how they got into writing is different.
• When the opinions of others about our writing might provide clarification, and the times when we should NOT listen to them.
• The value of community, and support from other writers.
• There will be times in your life that you don’t write, but it doesn’t mean you aren’t a writer – it’s a season.
• If you have a long-term yearning to write, it’s probably not a mistake.
• The story of Moses, who didn’t really find out that he’d fulfilled his calling until the end of the process.
• Writing vs other things we waste time on.
• The value of enjoying our writing.