Raised in a strict, church-going family, award-winning writer Patricia Raybon was shocked to find herself struggling in adulthood with a lifeless marriage and an unsettling distance from God. She set out to rebuild her prayer life, searching for a connection that would transform her household and impact others. But as her prayer journey took off, life interrupted with a mountain of hard, personal challenges. Suddenly in the "school of prayer," the Christopher Award-winner and popular college professor found herself not only on her knees praying, but at her desk—writing this powerful, inspiring, funny, personal, brave, redemptive account of her quest to rediscover, in the midst of modern-day challenges, God's greatest lesson on life-changing prayer.
I write faith-building, life-changing books that help people heal. That means I focus on our human struggles, then write about the process--helping us all find our answers.
That's what I did in my first professional job, a reporting position on the city desk at The Denver Post. I covered crime and fires and such. In short time, however, I made my way to the paper's features department, writing "human-interest" stories about people trying to make sense of life, work, family and love.
WRITING AND TEACHING
My feature articles won many lovely writing honors, including the First Place Helen Carringer Journalism Award from the National Mental Health Association, a First Place General Reporting Award from the Society of Professional Journalists' Colorado Chapter, several first-place feature writing awards from National Press Women and Colorado Press Women, among others. Then after newspapers, including several years at Denver's beloved Rocky Mountain News, I joined the journalism faculty at CU-Boulder where I taught scores of wonderful journalism students.
Meantime, my personal essays on faith, family and racial healing were published in The New York Times Magazine, Newsweek, USA Today, USA Weekend, Chicago Tribune, The Denver Post, Rocky Mountain News, the Charles Stanley Ministries In Touch Magazine and featured on National Public Radio's Weekend Edition.
PUBLISHING AND SPEAKING
Then I started writing books. My first two are memoirs--"My First White Friend," a personal story on racial healing and a Christopher Award winner, and "I Told the Mountain to Move," a 2006 Book of the Year (Christianity Today Magazine) finalist about my journey as a Christian woman to learn how to pray.
My newest books are a One Year® devotional, "God's Great Blessings," covering 52 virtues that God blesses, and "Bound for Glory," a collaboration honoring African American spirituals and featuring the art of renown calligrapher Timothy Botts.
Authors also speak. So I've been blessed to present keynotes and workshops all over the U.S. to phenomenal groups. As well, I've given more than 100 radio and TV interviews including segments on The Today Show, National Public Radio, Tavis Smiley Show, Talk of the Nation and more.
HOME FIRES
Closer to home, I'm a wife, mother, grandmother, mother-in-law and active member of the historic Shorter Community A.M.E. Church. I also sing second alto in a community choir called The Spirituals Project. Married 35 amazing years to my husband Dan, I have two beautiful grown daughters, one awesome son-in-law and four amazing grandchildren.
In all of this, I seek to live in the spirit of one of my favorite Bible verses, "For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ; for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth." (Romans 1:16, KJV)
