Dear Readers: Each of us has our own individual way of looking at the world and what we believe to be the purpose of our existence. Our personal world view may be rooted in religion, science, philosophy or something unique to ourselves. Today we’re going to meet Lucinda Miller, a rising young writer from Rusk County, who writes both from a faith-based perspective and also as one who has grown up with a deep understanding of and appreciation for the natural world.
“Luci,” as she is called by family and friends, was born and still lives on a farm begun by her great-grandfather near Conrath. She attended Linden Christian Day School through sixth grade, then was home schooled from grades 7-12. Luci says she has always loved to read, and her interest in reading eventually led her to creative writing. She relates that when she was 18 she saw an advertisement in a magazine for a creative writing course which included the slogan “Only You Can Make Your Dreams Come True.” Taking the slogan to heart, Luci applied for the by-mail course and learned how to write stories and submit them for publication. “The course gave me the courage to move forward,” she says.
With the support of family and friends, especially her mother who, she says, is an excellent “sounding board” for her writing, Luci has had a number of poems, stories and articles published in a variety of magazines and periodicals. An accomplished poet, she says she includes elements of poetry, such as metaphor, alliteration and assonance, in her prose writing and reads her writing aloud before submitting it for publication to “test the sound of the language.”
A lifelong Mennonite, Luci says she would like to share the “richness of her faith” through her writing. As she explains, her religious faith is “part of the way she thinks.” Her writing is an expression of “everything she loves in life and is a way of celebrating something that is much larger” than our everyday existence and not fully expressible. She says she writes because she “has to,” and her aim is to paint for the reader a “real picture of life in all its nuances and colors.”
Earlier this year Luci’s autobiographical book, Anything But Simple, was published by Herald Press. In it Luci describes growing up in a conservative Mennonite farm family, and how, while keeping true to her roots, she has learned to move comfortably in the world of cell phones and Facebook. Additionally, Luci has recently had a children’s book, titled The Arrowhead, brought out by Christian Light Publications. She describes the book as being a “fictionalized history” of an actual arrowhead found by her father.
Luci relates that crafting true stories based on real -life experiences is her favorite form of writing. For a number of years she has participated in a church-based summer program working with First Nation families in Ontario, Canada. Luci says her next major writing project will likely be a book about a First Nation woman whose story she heard while taking part in the summer program.
Anything But Simple is available locally through the Rusk Area Arts Alliance Gift Gallery, 711 Lake Street. W. in Ladysmith, Holly’s Last Stand, Hwy. 8, Ladysmith and Miller’s Country Book Store in Sheldon. Additionally, it can be ordered on line through either Amazon or Herald Press.com. The Arrowhead is available locally at the RAAA Gift Gallery and at Miller’s Country Book Store. Luci also has a blog at www.lucindajmiller.com and can be reached by e-mail at awriter86@gmail.com.
–Pegeen Snoeyenbos