Deborah Burnside

Deborah Burnside was born in Glendale, California, grew up in Whittier, lived in Long Beach for four years, then moved to southern Oregon for the next 25 years. She's back in California now, living in rural Shasta County with her new husband, Patrick. The couple currently has six cats, but that number is subject to change at any given moment. When not writing, Deborah rescues stray, abandoned, and abused animals - primarily cats, but occasionally dogs as well.

When Deborah was in the second grade, a short essay she wrote as a class assignment was selected for publication in the Whittier Daily News, and she was instantly enamored with the power of the written word. She went on to write numerous creative stories, stage plays, and poetry while still going through school. She worked as a reporter and as the entertainment editor for her high school newspaper, and as a reporter for her college newspaper.

Although Deborah would later forego a career in journalism in favor of marriage and motherhood, the need to write has always remained strong. She finds writing to be highly therapeutic, crediting both it and the Lord for her ability to survive some very difficult years and situations. She continues to devote her creative efforts to fiction novels and poetry, with a few short stories and a couple of worship songs thrown in. Several of her poems have been published in anthologies.

She is also an amateur volcanologist, having been bitten by that bug in 2004 when Mt. St. Helens was once more in an eruptive phase. She spent 11 days at the Coldwater Ridge observatory with her then-husband, who rests now in the arms of Jesus. Her experiences while on the mountain will surely find their way into some not-yet-written story.