Rebuilding Joy

Regina Rudd Merrick has written all her life. From the scribbling of a young child writing I love you notes to her mother, to the teenager who tried to write a more satisfying sequel to Gone with the Wind, she developed a distinct love of happily ever after. That love of fiction parlayed into a career as a librarian, and she is the former director of a small public library in Marion, KY. She began attending local writing workshops and continued to hone her craft by writing several short and novel-length fan-fiction pieces published online. In fact, it was after writing Christian-themed stories based on a television show that ended too soon that she decided to pursue original fiction. With encouragement from some writing friends, she attended her first ACFW conference and met like-minded writers that were as concerned with building others up as with their own careers. Regina is now an active member of the Ken-Ten Writing Group, which has participants from Western Kentucky and Western Tennessee, and helps plan the group's yearly conference. She is an instrumentalist and vocalist in the music program of her church and has participated in many areas of ministry over the years. Married for 30+ years, Regina and her husband, Todd, have two grown daughters who share her love of music, writing, and the arts. They live in Marion, in Western Kentucky, in a county where there are, literally, more deer than people. Her hobbies include watching other people work on houses on HGTV, decorating, antiquing (otherwise known as picking), cooking, reading, playing music, and dreaming of the beaches of South Carolina.