Alece Ronzino

Alece is smack-dab in the middle of the biggest Plan B of her life, enduring infidelity, divorce, and the loss of her ministry in Africa. Now she’s rediscovering what faith really is, trusting God to redeem the broken pieces of her life and make something beautiful out of her ashes. Alece blogs candidly about the grit and glory of her journey. Mostly grit.

Alece’s blog | Alece on Twitter

Amber Haines

Amber Haines, author of TheRunaMuck, (In)courage blogger, Christmas Change Blog Editor, and !dea Camp Orphan-Care Blog Coordinator, has a degree in English/Creative Writing and has persevered through half an MFA in Poetry at The University Of Arkansas before birthing 3 boys in 3 years. There have been no signs pointing back to those workshops, so she feels perpetually unfinished, and yet the study is somehow better now.

Amber is a Southerner and a straggler, so she writes about the long haul, heirloom mason jars in the basement, and a struggling yet growing faith.

Amber’s Blog | Amber on Twitter

Arianne Segerman

Arianne is a freelance writer and mom of three boys living in Charleston, South Carolina. She sifts through the dinosaurs and trains to find her inner steel magnolia, hoping to one day catch up on the laundry. Her heart is healing and thriving from living life as a mom of autism and from losing her daughter at 18 weeks along in her pregnancy. The way God has transformed and renewed her soul is nothing short of a miracle.

Arianne’s Blog |  Arianne on Twitter

Ashleigh Baker

Ashleigh Baker has been sharing her life and her heart in a little online corner she calls Heart and Home since 2005. Relationships and idea-sharing are her passions and she connects with an amazing community several times a week as she ponders authentic living, motherhood, faith, and family. Raising two preschoolers of the boy variety keep her dancing through each day, staging car races and breaking up wrestling matches. She spends her evenings writing love letters to her deployed Marine and her mornings counting the days until his return.

Ashleigh seeks to discover poetry within life’s prose and believes that, indeed, beauty will save the world.

Ashleigh’s Blog |  Ashleigh on Twitter

DL Mayfield

DL Mayfield lives and writes in Portland, OR. DL, along with her cute husband and cute baby, are currently on an experiment of downward mobility, with all of the mess and joy that doing without can bring. Passionate about intentional community and giving a voice to the least of these in our societies, DL is trying to be honest about the struggle between individuality and community, between privacy and accountability, and between sorrow and joy. She loves all the good things the Good Lord made, which includes you.

DL’s Blog  |  DL on Twitter

Elora Ramirez

Elora Ramirez is a storyteller who lives in Austin, Texas with her chef-husband Russell. A self-proclaimed story-theorist and champion of beauty, she works as a high school Instructional Coach during the day and writes by night. A couple years ago, in the middle of a creative dry spell , she found her purpose. In a room full of revolutionaries and ordinary radicals, she felt on fire. Tell my stories, she heard Someone say. And pictures flashed in her mind of those forgotten.

Since then, sheʼs made it her mission to carry the stage wherever she goes – listening for the whispers of stories time has erased. It was through this new direction she wrote her first novel, Come Alive, set to release before Christmas 2011. She writes candidly about her journey of healing and recovery – encouraging others, specifically women, to find beauty in brokenness and the strength of leaning into grace.

Elora’s Blog  |  Elora on Twitter

Emily Carter

Emily is a born and bred Southerner, but wanderlust has moved her little family all over the country. Teacher of young children, mama to sweet Miles, and wife to her daring pilot husband and high school sweetheart, Patrick.

Hiding herself away with a good book has long been a favorite pastime, and the power of a story has never failed to seduce her.  She writes about family, flying, travel, and life at The Pilot’s Wife and is also a contributor for Simple Kids.

Emily’s Blog |  Emily on Twitter

Emily Wierenga

she is wife to Trenton (a math and science teacher), mother to Aiden Grey (nov. 12, 2009) and Kasher Jude (july 25, 2011), a freelance journalist, author and commissioned artist. e volunteers as a counselor for families with eating disordered loved ones, and in quiet moments, she runs, plays guitar, kisses her babies, and travels. for more info, please visit www.emilywierenga.com.

Emily’s Blog |  Emily on Twitter

Erika Morrison

I am a Life Artist – joyously, intentionally discovering the fine art of living. I am a daughter of a Divine Meeting with Jesus Christ. I am a wife to 6 foot 3 inches of deliciousness. I am a mother to three young dudes – ages 9,7 and 6. I am a friend to a village of exquisite people. I love paradoxes, paradigm shifts and fairytales, rainy days, shades of grey and sitting in the quiet-dark. Put a cup of steaming black tea between my palms, give me your face to settle across from, tell me your story and I am the happiest girl in the world.

Someone once asked me what I thought education was and I said “A lifestyle of shared stories…” Shall we?

Erika’s Blog

Haley Cloyd

Haley is a Pacific Northwesterner at heart who loves Jesus, calls people dude, and dreads a morning without coffee. When she’s not at her day job, she works with high school students, knits, writes (or at least thinks about writing), reads one of the eight books she’s currently in the middle of, and loves people through baked goods. Haley has also been known, on occasion, to run distances that some people consider too long.

PS. Haley almost always has something more to say.

PPS. By almost always, she means always.

Haley’s Blog |  Haley on Twitter

Joy Bennett

I am a freelance writer, mother of four, wife, reader, follower of Christ, bereaved parent, and asker of questions. Two of my children were born with serious congenital heart defects, including my first. I’ve been writing since the 2nd grade and have blogged since 2005, writing on faith and doubt, family life, grief, and the depression that I only recognized a year after our oldest died at the age of 8.

Joy’s Blog |  Joy on Twitter

Lauren Dubinsky

Lauren is a 50/50 left-brained/right-brained extroverted introvert, and is an awkward clash between a Southern Belle and a West Coast mover and shaker. She’s a tech and arts girl, adores photography, and is slowly learning that she lives to love and loves to write. She writes & blogs on living life well, sex & relationships, dealing with pain, becoming a good woman, and being the kind of Christian that people don’t hate. She also runs GoodWomenProject.com.

Lauren’s Blog |  Lauren on Twitter

Mandy Steward

Mandy Steward is married to Tony and has four kids.
She likes to paint word pictures that reveal the spiritual that lurks even in the mundanest of moments. She is extremely passionate about a lot of things:
She believes that life is good and we are to live it to the fullest.
She believes in restoring beauty.
She believes in touching lives and fighting for free hearts.
She believes we are created for a purpose.
She believes we are constantly learning.
She believes life is messy.
She believes we’re doing the best we can.
Her soul is fed by words, splashes of color, story, music, nature, the beach, creating, ever unfolding mystery, imperfection bathed in hope and asking others what feeds their soul.

Mandy’s Blog |  Mandy on Twitter

Mason Slater

Mason is a husband to Melinda, seminary student, blogger and freelance writer in the Mecca of Christendom, Grand Rapids, MI. He is passionate about theology, community and justice. What little time is left amidst his busy schedule is devoted to reading, coffee snobbery and a new adventure in home brewing.

Mason’s Blog |  Mason on Twitter

Megan Tietz

For as long as she can remember, Megan Tietz has been writing stories in her head. She’s no stranger to make-believe, but lives for the redemptive threads that weave together the stuff of real life.  Though she was born in Houston with a heart branded by the Lone Star State, she grew up along creek beds and lake shores in Oklahoma and now lives on its windswept plains with her husband and two brown-eyed girls.

For over five years, she has written about faith, family, and natural living at SortaCrunchy. She is the parenting and kids columnist at Simple Mom and co-author of Spirit-Led Parenting, to be released by Civitas Press in Spring 2012. More likely to be loquacious rather than succinct, she’s always up for conversation, especially when it’s shared over a cup of hot coffee.

Megan’s Blog  |  Megan on Twitter

Nish Weiseth

Nish, the creator of A Deeper Story and author of Nish Happens, is a wifey, mommy, adventurer, writer, daydreamer, thinker, connector, and believer. She’s a Salt Lake City-dweller and a music snob, a lover of wine and rap music, and putting pen to paper. Most of her time is filled with diapers, laundry, small handprints and chasing her tiny boy, but she finds ways to steal moments, capturing life in word and film.

Nish’s Blog |  Nish on Twitter

Preston Yancey

Preston Yancey is a senior at Baylor University earning his degree in Great Texts of the Western Tradition with a focus in medieval theology and literature. He also has a minor in Political Science, specialized in East Asian foreign and domestic policy, which he contends happened by accident. Presently he serves as the chief research assistant under the direction of Dr. Sarah-Jane Murray for the first English translation of the Ovide moralisé, a fourteenth-century Christian moralization of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, funded by the National Endowment of the Humanities by a sizable research grant awarded Fall 2011 to Spring 2014. He is concurrently completing a manuscript-length thesis under the direction of Dr. David Lyle Jeffrey about the importance of recovering the language and poetics of Story in the Gospels and in the Faith, with particular focus on the parables of Christ. He dabbles in fiction, hoping to have revisions of his first novel completed summer 2013 and to spend the rest of his life somewhere sacred and writing. In the meantime, he makes his home where he can, being found often enough in an airport, coffee shop, or car, on the way to the next destination: from Waco to Austin to Chicago to London to Beijing and beyond. He runs on a diet of caffeine and God’s grace.

Preston’s Blog | Preston on Twitter

Sara Sophia

Sara Sophia pens things on pages she leaves on her bedside table, on receipts in the car, and on her own arms with a trusty sharpie. She’s been telling stories ever since she can remember. She will write until the wee hours of the morning when the light is a shade of remembering-blue. Words overtake her. On her personal blog, LoveSaraSophia–she writes letters of life to herself and to you. Snapshots of each day and the poetry amidst the chaos.

Sara Sophia’s Blog |  Sara Sophia on Twitter

Sarah Bessey

Sarah is a writer and non-profit marketing director. At her personal blog, Emerging Mummy she grapples with spirituality, theology, mothering, politics and almost everything else you’re not supposed to discuss in polite company. She lives in British Columbia, Canada with her husband and three tinies.

Sarah’s Blog |  Sarah on Twitter

Sarah Markley

Sarah Markley is the mother of two little girls, the wife of an amazing husband who’d rather play the guitar than anything else and she loves to write. Sarah spends her weekends watching her daughters ride horses and play soccer. She blogs daily at sarahmarkley.com, contributes monthly at (in)courage, and her greatest wish is to see women healed and marriages made healthy.

Sarah’s Blog | Sarah on Twitter

Seth Haines

I am a working stiff stranded somewhere between Arkansas and home. I am blessed to be the husband of Amber Haines and the father of three boys. I enjoy good sentences, good music, good food, and good fly fishing. It’s a privilege to scratch out words when the opportunity arises. Thanks for reading.

Seth’s Blog |  Seth on Twitter

Tamara Lunardo

Tamara is a collector of fine tattoos, an imbiber of cheap wine, and a singer of eclectic music. She works out her thoughts on life and faith at TamaraOutLoud.com, occasionally with adult language, frequently with attempted humor, and hopefully with God’s blessing. Editor of “What a Woman is Worth” through Civitas Press, she holds a BA in English and her five children, when they let her; she almost never holds her tongue.

Tamara’s Blog |  Tamara on Twitter

The Tiny Twig

I grew among the tall rows of corn that stretch farther than the Indiana summers.  I moved East after college with little more my young husband and a baby kicking within.  Over the next several years, I became a mother (twice over) and felt my position in life shrink to the four walls of my home.  A cup of tea and my tattered Bible accompanied me in a winter long pursuit of my “place” in life.  In those cold hours, it was impressed upon me that my high and mighty calling was in the small and messy tasks.  However, in infinite kindness and care, the Lord also hung the hope on my heart that the small things in life can be pursued with passion.

Decidedly small in stature, I can only dream to have a big impact through my life, my words, and my story.  I desire a life of adventure and have harbored a lifelong fear of mediocrity.  Passion is something I hope to hold on to, cultivate, learn about, and grow in…whatever that looks like.  I want to love others more than myself.  I want my boys to grow up to be good men.  I want to live a love story that could be made into a movie.  I want to bring the profound, the excellent, and the glorious into even the mundane things we do everyday in life.  Can you create and seek that spark wherever you go?  I’m on a lifelong mission to find out.

The Tiny Twig’s Blog |  The Tiny Twig on Twitter