Welcome back! We’ve got just a few more weeks until we’ll all be gathered at Ridgecrest, ready to make new friends and learn a lot about writing. Today, I’m going to introduce you to six more of our prestigious faculty members. Let’s get started!
Karynthia Glasper-Phillips
1. I love horseback riding … but I don’t like the horse looking back at me.
2. I have two granddaughters, who for years did not know I was their grandmother. All they know is “Mena.”
3. Shades of pink are my favorite colors mixed with shades of green, but for some reason I purchase a lot of coral. Check ishihara color test. Well, they say I’m mildly color blind.
4. When I find a shoe I love, I buy different colors. I went to the office one day with the same shoe, but one black and one blue. Yes, I wore them all day.
5. I enjoy people but I’m really shy. Most say no way. Others say they can see that.
6. I drink hot tea year round.
Mary Denman
1. I have five children and one grandchild on the way.
2. I homeschooled my kids for 18 years.
3. I went to Thailand and lived with a missionary.
4. I have 3 cats and a wonderful dog.
5. My husband was a rocket scientist. We love rocket scientist jokes!!!
6. We still dye Easter eggs as a family even though my youngest is 16.
Adrienne Gaines
1. We didn’t have a family dog when I was growing up. We had a turtle named Homer.
2. I’m not always so adventurous, but on a trip to Africa, I ate zebra, crocodile, and ostrich. The zebra was a little tough, but none of the meats were terrible. I’d eat ostrich again.
3. On a vacation in Hawaii, my friends and I were mistaken for a female singing group. (We weren’t singing or anything. We were just sitting in a cafe drinking coffee and eating pastries.)
4. I don’t read comics (no disrespect to those who do), but I’m a big fan of superhero movies. And British period dramas. There’s nothing disparate about that.
5. I played hand bells in high school – and our hand bell choir was very good! We won competitions and everything. 🙂
6. I used to be able to quote ten books of the Bible in their entirety. Now I can barely remember what happened yesterday!
Karen Whiting
1. I’m a survivor of 4 lightning strikes, two major hurricanes, and two spontaneous combustible fires in two homes I lived in.
2. I like adventure, so I did scuba dive off the coast of Bermuda, rode a camel in the Canary Islands, rode horseback in the ocean in Jamaica, and white-water rafted in Australia on a river where Olympic champions trained.
3. I never wanted to write. I’m a mathematician. God called me to write 23 years ago, and I’m still doing it.
4. I grew up in dairy farm country in a small town in Connecticut near one of the many towns my family founded in the 1630s.
5. I grew up surrounded by family — many cousins, grandparents, great grands and also all my parents’ cousins.
Cindy Sproles
1. I love my fish tank and I’ve trained my fish!
2. I hate roller coasters but I will suffer the experience to share it with my adult sons.
3. I’m a wee bit obsessive compulsive.
4. I can figure skate. (I know … funny, heh?)
5. I’m a vet surgery tech by trade.
6. My favorite desert is brown sugar and Cinnamon on baked pie crust.
Bonus: I’m a born mountain gal. I don’t mind my accent.
Tessa Emily Hall
1. I attended my first writing conference, BRMCWC, when I was sixteen years old. It was there that I met my future publisher, Eddie Jones of LPC Books. My debut novel, PURPLE MOON, was published by LPC a few years later when I was nineteen. Needless to say, this conference holds a very special place in my heart!
2. I was a cheerleader — for my school and competitive squads.
3. I grew up participating in theater productions with Christian Youth Theater. Now I act in Christian-based films in my “spare” time. (I was an extra in the movie “The Blind Side.” But you’ll need to pause the movie at just the right time to see the speck of my face in the crowd!)
4. My three main food groups are coffee, dark chocolate, and peanut butter. (And yes, they can be combined! One of my favorite lattes is peanut butter mocha at a local coffee shop. Yum.)
5. I was three years old when I began dictating stories to my mom, and it’s also then that I begged her to teach me to read. I remember thinking how cool it was that the markings on a page could actually interpret a story!
6. My granddaddy’s best friend in college, and the best man at his wedding, was Sam Moore (first CEO and President of Thomas Nelson Publishers).
The Conversation
I love getting to know the faculty this way! Such fun!