Those were Natalie Gillespie’s words of advice to me at the 2014 (?) Blue Ridge Writer’s conference at the beautiful Ridgecrest Conference Center here in our own North Carolina mountains near Asheville, NC.
What was I doing at a writers’ conference? I was following my “wanna be” writer (husband) around, getting infected with his dream of becoming a writer. Attendees were permitted to spend time with the conference faculty members.
Natalie was listed in the conference brochure as one of the conference faculty members, as an editor. It was an honor to get to spend time with her and get to know her personally, to learn that we had similar Charismatic backgrounds. (My husband had since considered hiring her as an editor but had lost her contact information.)
The instant I heard Natalie’s advice, I immediately felt that she was right. That very week I had seen an attractive post card advertising a new book about a true story of a Mennonite family. Its subtitle was something about their journey of faith. Nothing in the ad made me want to purchase the book. I was glad for them but could not see myself at all in the story.
What Natalie said made sense. My subtitle had been something about the true story of a family’s journey of faith. There was nothing to pull the reader into the journey itself.
Natalie suggested something about legacy building. Everyone does that. I thought about it and thought of “Creating a Lasting Legacy.”
So, that became my new subtitle (and later a blog). I’m so glad I changed it.
Now I saw her name as the author of the Charisma magazine article, “Revival in the North,” in the current (June) issue. (p. 28) She had a good subtitle, “The Holy Spirit is moving powerfully in a small Canadian church.”
Since I knew the author and liked the titles, I now had dual reasons for reading the article. I knew it would be good.
I remembered Natalie’s humble beginning; as I recall she told us that while she was busy raising her children and maybe foster children, she would often contact people with the free trade magazines outside grocery stores and offer to write for them. That’s how she began to establish herself as a writer; now she was an editor and faculty member at the famous Blue Ridge Writers Conference.
Charisma offers only this short bio about Natalie: Natalie Gillespie is an author, editor and journalist who has contributed to Charisma Media publications for more than 20 years. (p. 34)
Charisma also gives this on-line link to one of the men whom Natalie is writing about. “ONLINE EXCLUSIVE: Watch as evangelist Vernon Bessey preaches a powerful message on the gospel of Christ at SonRise Ministries at bussey.charismamag.com.” (p. 34)
Yep! The wise man, Solomon, once told us that there is safety in a multitude of counsel. I’m glad I listened to a very wise counselor a few years ago, Natalie Gillespie.