“I’m passionate about stories and the people who write them.”
Deborah Froese is on a mission: to spark change through the power of story. Her fiction for young readers has earned recognition in Canada, the US, and Germany, and she has a broad protfolioof published nonfiction to her credit. For nearly thirty years, she has worked with other writers who share her passion.
“Stories are important,” she says. “Fact or fiction, they have the potential to change moods and change minds, introduce new perspectives, and transport audiences to new worlds. They immerse us in ideas and circumstances we might not otherwise encounter.”
But stories don’t just influence audiences; they impact their creators too.
“Story ideas are usually prompted by what is going on in our subconscious minds,” Deborah says. “If we pay close attention to the characters we create and the kinds of themes we lean toward, we can gradually uncover matters we need to deal with. We can even learn to rewrite stories from our past. Telling them from a slightly different perspective, perhaps even tweaking the plotline, can help us see hope where we might once have seen only despair.”
Before focusing on the art and craft of writing, Deborah tried a number of jobs including waitressing, puppeteering, photography, and various forms of art. She spent ten years designing audio visual presentations and another ten years serving as news director for a church organization in Canada. Between the latter two roles, she raised three sons and began a writing career that led to three published books and numerous published articles.
Her novel Out of the Fire was named one of the American Library Association’s Best Books for Young Adults, and in German translation, was shortlisted for the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis. She illustrated her picture book Mr. Jacobson’s Window, and all three of her books were shortlisted for the McNally Robinson Book for Young People Award.
Since her first book was published in 1996, Deborah has facilitated countless writing workshops with people of all ages. For a few years, she explored writing and life in “Inkwell,” a column in WordWrap, a former publication of the Manitoba Writers Guild.
As well as serving her own clients, Deborah is the executive editor for Indigo River Publishing, a hybrid publisher located in the USA.
And yes; she still writes.
“Light a spark by sharing your story,” Deborah says. “It might be exactly what someone else needs to hear.”