Rachael Phillips began her unplanned writing career contributing columns to her church newsletter. Positive responses from her congregation motivated her to attend a writing seminar at Bethel College, Mishawaka, Indiana, where instructors encouraged writers to submit their work to publishers. Rachael sent a humor column to the Hometown editor of the South Bend Tribune, who requested more. He also asked her to cover local news events. For five years, Rachael wrote for the Tribune, accumulating more than a hundred bylines.

            Rachael also began classes at Bethel College in January 1998 and earned an associate degree in professional writing in December 2001. She will receive her bachelor of arts in English at Bethel in May 2005.

            Rachael keeps busy writing in the second-story many-windowed office she has dubbed the "Tree House," a fulfillment of her childhood fantasy. She has published humorous magazine articles in Virtue, Today’s Christian Woman and Marriage Partnership.  “It’s the Little Things that Count” (Marriage Partnership, Fall 2003) took third place in the Evangelical Press Association’s competition this year. She also won the 2004 Erma Bombeck Global Humor Award with her essay “Dam It All, Anyway” in a contest sponsored by the Washington-Centerville Library in conjunction with the University of Dayton, where Erma attended.

            Rachael has authored four biographies in Barbour Publishing’s Heroes of the Faith series:  Frederick Douglass:  Abolitionist and Reformer; Billy Sunday:  Evangelist on the Sawdust Trail; St. Augustine:  Early Church Father; and Well with My Soul, a collection of four mini-biographies of hymn writers.

            An inspirational speaker and humorist, Rachael enjoys sharing with small and large groups of diverse backgrounds and interests. She teaches women’s Bible studies and a college-aged Sunday school class, as well as leading worship and performing solos.

            Married to Steve, a family physician, and the mother of Beth, 25, Christy, 22, and David, 19, she especially enjoys her new granddaughter, Annabelle Kate. Her hobbies include hand-holding walks with her husband, riding their tandem bicycle, reading and singing.