Alma Barkman

It was never my intention to become a writer, but in searching for an outlet for my creativity while our toddlers napped, I wrote a story that was published in a local paper. Then I wrote another. Then some of my poetry was broadcast, and I was encouraged by the announcer to further develop my talents. Part of a correspondence course in journalism in which I enrolled required four sample newspaper columns that I was to submit to an editor. He just happened to like them and thus began a weekly challenge (sometimes a chore!) that lasted for 23 years.

About the time our oldest son had acne and our youngest had diaper rash, I received my first book contract from Moody Publishers. While the toddlers played demolition derby over the manuscript with their toy cars, I hammered away on an old Underwood typewriter. The result was a women's devotional called Sunny Side Up. Moody went on to publish four more of my books, one of which caught the eye of an editor at Daily Guideposts, and I contributed there for sixteen years.

In addition to writing books, I have continued to freelance, having well over a thousand inspirational, humorous, craft articles or poems published in a wide variety of newspapers, periodicals and Christian publications. Photography is another interest that I use to illustrate many of the above articles and I have contributed weekly photos with relevant captions to the editorial page of a local rural newspaper for the past 25 years.

As a practicing Christian, over the years I have led neighborhood Bible studies, directed not so neighborly kids in a weekly club, donned a clown suit as the Vacation Bible School mascot "Rosco," warbled alto from the choir loft, decoded the preacher's hieroglyphics as church secretary and scrubbed toilets when the caretaker failed to show. I have also taught an adult Sunday School class and am past president of the Manitoba Christian Writers Association.