An Author’s Voice
Marbeth is one of my dearest author friends. We connected over our curvy-girl stories, grew our friendship through countless back-and-forth emails and messages as we navigated our ministries, and cemented our friendship by supporting each other on our journey.
Marbeth’s past is not like my Pollyanna experience in the church, but it is real—and it needs to be discussed. Marbeth speaks truth gracefully in her God-honoring stories. Enjoy reading about her journey toward being an author, and if you haven’t yet, pick up one of Marbeth’s books on Amazon.* I know you will be blessed. As you always do, please continue the courtesy of leaving a review or rating. It is the greatest gift you can give an author.
From
Marbeth’s Heart
Like most Christian writers, I view my chosen career as a calling and a ministry. More than anything, I speak out on behalf of those required to remain silent.
The issues I address in The Rose Collection come from real-life experiences. Some I went through, and others were researched. I cannot help but put a bit of myself in each main character. We share thoughts, emotions, and motivations for the several hundred hours it takes to bring a book to life. We are, temporarily at least, sharing a brain. So, even if I haven’t had the same experiences as the characters, I do tap into what my reactions WOULD be. My novels have a lot of INTERNAL dialogs, mostly because speaking OUT wasn’t always an option for me. I’m from the “seen and not heard” generation.
So, how did I deal with my big feelings? I started writing.
I wrote a book to make sense of what was happening in the church I loved. I created a main character who was sold out for Christ and a fan of his youth pastor. He was a boy who wanted nothing more than to live the life he’d planned under the tutelage of that mentor, only to discover that this man was living a double life and endangering the safety of one of his closest friends. As the story progressed, I could also show the beauty of healing and the reconstruction of one’s faith after betrayal. That boy grew up to be a godly, honest man — and a phenomenal father and husband.
Later, I challenged myself to write in various genres and ignorantly believed romance would be the easiest to tackle. But I was going to do things differently. No meet-cute for me! No silly misunderstanding! No third-act breakup! No wedding at the end! I had no idea romance has hard and fast rules that MUST be followed to be considered part of the genre. In short, the book is a failure as a romance novel, but the experience taught me that contemporary fiction was the genre for me. The novel featured a plus-sized Christian school teacher whose work didn’t end after her forty hours were up. She worked hard but was constantly shut down by the male leaders. She lived in poverty. In other words, I was writing what I knew. But I also realized that what I had accepted as “normal” was economic abuse and emotional manipulation.
Showing frustration through a novel was easier than expressing it in real life.
For my third book, the internal dialog I’d experienced growing up became my primary resource. I mixed it with experience attending an ACE school, the use of To Train Up a Child to conflate physical abuse with discipline, and what it is like to be the “scapegoat” of an abusive family.
I wrote (and rewrote) the first three books while still teaching, hoping I could eventually quit and write full-time. I had wanted to leave teaching for about 15 years, but our family was so tied to our church it wasn’t possible. I loved my students and the subjects, but I knew deep down that this was not the job for me. Returning each fall for Teacher In-Service Week was the most depressing part of my year. I learned to shut up and work.
Until August of 2019. One day, after the In-Service morning sessions, I drove my husband to an eye appointment. He was the school administrator and on a call with someone on campus while we sat in traffic on the freeway. When he hung up, he turned to look at me in surprise and said, “Are you okay?”
I was crying. My tears were silent but uncontrollable. I tried to reassure him, letting him know I was releasing stress. He knew that it was a rough week for me, so he understood why I was emotional, but until that moment, I don’t think he got how soul-sucking my job had become because he asked, “You really don’t want to teach, do you?” I couldn’t answer but shook my head no. “Want to make this your last year?”
The tears picked up their pace. I knew I couldn’t quit. We needed both of our incomes.
“We’ll work something out. You don’t have to come back next year.”
With every rough moment of the 2019-2020 school year (and there were many), I clung to the promise that I could quit in June.
That summer, I didn’t prepare for classes. Instead, I rewrote my first book.
In September, I self-published Plague of Lies. In May 2022, I published my second book, Twists, Turns, and Curves. No Longer Invisible became available in October 2022.
I was taken aback when readers said they had experiences like those in my books. I’d thought what I was writing about was somewhat rare. Several women I went to church with pulled me aside to whisper the truths they’d kept hidden for years. “That happened to me when I was a teen.” “I was told not to discuss it because it might destroy the ministry.” “I was punished for getting raped.” “When a man at my church got me pregnant as a teen, I was sent to a girls’ home, and my baby was taken away.” “When I went to my pastor about the abuse, he said I was gossiping.”
I had attended that church for thirty years and had no idea my fellow members had been victims of abuse growing up. It still breaks my heart.
Staying quiet has done more damage than we can know. It has allowed abuse to flourish and for abusers to gain power over the most vulnerable people in our communities. I’ve continued to write for those who were told to “get over” their abuse and stay quiet. I’m six books into The Rose Collection and plan for six more.
The days of being silenced are coming to an end.
About the Author:
Though born on the East Coast, Marbeth spent most of her life in the American Southwest, eventually settling in California, where she and her husband raised two sons. Later, they welcomed two fantastic daughters-in-law and four grandchildren into their family. After teaching history and literature for eighteen years, Marbeth resigned to write full-time. That new career move was paired with a physical move to beautiful Nevada, where she continues to write happily.
Marbeth’s preferred genre is Christian contemporary fiction. She keeps my characters grounded in the real world and the real problems that Bible believers face today. While they grow, learn, and find possible solutions to their issues, her characters must also deal with the detritus of the past. Living well today doesn’t mean that yesterday was erased. Marbeth writes what she knows, either first-hand or through close observation, injecting the joy, happiness, and humor that comes with spiritual freedom and love.
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