Subscribe to Patti’s newsletter under the NEWSLETTER SUBSCRIPTIION tab above
Subscribe to Patti’s Blogs using the subscription form below
Step Into The Light Podcast introduces listeners to people who have found their way out of the dark shadows of life and those who lead others on their journey from darkness.
STEP INTO THE LIGHT
is no longer broadcasting new episodes
Available archived episodes currently are EP #230 – #272
Check back for updates as new archived shows are added
PATTI’S BLOGS
The Over Fifty Writer (1st and 3rd Friday)
Patti’s Porch(2nd and 4th Tuesday)
Meet seasoned authors, learn about new books and find inspiration to help you along your journey. No matter how far you’ve come or where you are going, I’d be honored to travel with you. If you like what you see, please subscribe to avoid missing updates.
Subscribe to Patti Shene's Posts
Step Into the Light Blog Talk Radio Show
Latest Show
2024-12-26
Episode #272 - Featuring Antony Kolenc
Antony has won several book awards, is a columnist for Practical Homeschooling Magazine, and hosts The Shepherd’s Pie radio show and podcast. A previous guest on Step Into the Light, Antony returns today to discuss the sixth book in his teen historical fiction Harwood Mysteries series titled The Devil’s Ransom. Join us as Antony discusses The Harwood Mystery series, it's message for teens, and his plans for an innovative and intriguing adult series due to release next year.
Recent Shows
2024-12-12
Episode #271 - Featuring Pastor Joseph Misiaszek
THE ROAD TO PUBLICATION...WITH HELP FROM FRIENDS by PATTI SHENE GONZALES 6/6/2025 1:15:00 AM BY Patti Shene
THE ROAD TO PUBLICATION...WITH HELP FROM FRIENDS
by
Patti Shene Gonzales
The road to publication isn’t easy. It takes a combination of circumstances and help from special friends to make it happen. I’d like to share the path I have traveled and how I came to sign my first publishing contract.
My dream of someday being an author started when I was young. I recall working on a novel in junior high school and sharing my weak scenes and stilted dialogue with my English teacher. I couldn’t say today what happened to that pitiful attempt of publishing success and the theme of the story has dissolved into a faded memory.
Years passed and I invested in my nursing career, my marriage, and the raising of my two children. The desire to write lurked in the deep corners of my brain like an elusive shadow. It manifested itself in various ways throughout my employment, rewriting policies and procedures for the facilities where I worked, turning creative phrases in routine nursing notes. Sometimes my words found their way into a newspaper article a carefully crafted note to a friend.
The VA hospital where I worked closed in 2001, I was able to retire at age fifty. My children had graduated from high school and ventured into higher education pursuits for their own career paths.
My thoughts turned more seriously to honing my writing skills in pursuit of that long awaited dream of publication. I read books on writing and devoured articles in Writer’s Digest Magazine. I learned about Marlene Bagnull’s Colorado Christian Writers Conference in Estes Park in the early 2000s. Marlene possessed a magnetism that drew me to her and infused in me a spirit of perseverance, a thirst for knowledge of the industry, and a drive to seek God’s purpose.
Marlene has directed the Greater Philadelphia and Colorado Christian Writers Conferences for four decades. Over the past twenty plus years, I’ve attended countless workshops, continuing sessions, fiction intensive clinics, motivating keynote speeches and awe-inspiring worship services at these two conferences. I’ve been blessed to form friendships with some of Christian fiction’s leading authors, been inspired by non-fiction books written by God-honoring, dedicated authors. I’ve developed an understanding of the most effective way to approach editors and agents with confidence. I’m learning how to adapt to industry changes and explore advances in technology.
Through all these years, I’ve let discouragement, doubt, and distractions stand in the way of my writing goals. Yet, Marlene never criticized or chastised me for my procrastination and poor excuses. She supported and encouraged me with every small step I took.
When I started podcasting with a co-host in 2015 and ran into a stumbling block, she urged me to begin my own show. She embraced my mission and invited me to teach at the conference. I hosted the show for a decade. Many of my guests were contacts I made through Marlene’s conferences who provided stellar interviews.
When the pandemic slowed everything to a standstill, Marlene amassed an amazing technological team who helped her launch a virtual conference. This July, she will direct the fourth Write His Answer Virtual Christian Writers Conference. If you have a desire to write, whether you’re a teen or pushing eighty, Marlene will inspire, encourage, lead, and pray you along your path in God’s plan to realize your publishing dreams.
At age seventy-three, my journey to a writing career is just beginning. Yesterday, I signed a three- book contract with Wild Heart Books. I’ve come to believe strongly in God’s timing, and I’m entering into this new career with tools I would not have acquired without Marlene’s conferences.
I’ll be serving on Marlene’s team this year and teaching a couple of workshops. Click here to explore the selection of continuing sessions, workshops, critique groups, round tables, panels and more that address topics from fiction writing techniques to marketing strategies at the 2025 Write His Answer Virtual Christian Writers Conference.
Registration is open! Sign up here today! RATES INCREASE AFTER JUNE 15TH
I’ll look forward to seeing you there!
MEET RUTHIE O'DONNELL by GAIL PALLOTTA 5/26/2025 10:10:00 PM BY Patti Shene
Featured Book: Dangerous Detour, Discipleship Series Book Two
Author: Gail Pallotta
Publisher: Winged Publications
Genre: Christian Romantic Suspense
Series or Stand Alone: Book Two in the Discipleship Series, but can be read as a stand alone.
Target Age: Adult
IT IS MY PLEASURE TO WELCOME AUTHOR GAIL PALLOTTA TO PATTI’S PORCH. GAIL INTRODUCES US TO ONE OF HER ENGAGING FICTIONAL CHARACTERS.
MEET RUTHIE O’DONNELL, THE HEROINE IN
DANGEROUS DETOUR, DISCIPLESHIP BOOK TWO
by
Gail Pallotta
Hi Ruthie, we’ve heard about your harrowing experience in the North Carolina Mountains. Can you tell us about it.
Sure.
What were you doing on an icy road?
I’m a professor at Hilltop College. I was on my way home to see my parents for Christmas and got caught in a winter storm.
Where’s home?
Florida. I’d lived my entire life there until I got the position at Hilltop. I didn’t know much about the mountains, snow, and ice, but I do now.
What do you teach?
Advanced grammar. Moose says taking my course would drive him nuts.
Who’s Moose? Is that his real name?
No. His real name is George. He got the nickname from his friends in high school, when he played linebacker on the football team. Now, he’s the football coach at Hilltop.
So, you knew Moose from Hilltop?
No. He also wrecked his car on the frozen road leaving Hilltop on the same day I did. Moose barely escaped a rockslide, and my car nearly tumbled over a 100-foot cliff.
My goodness, how did you survive the storm?
Sigh. We went to a cabin Moose knew about, but we soon realized a criminal wanted for murdering three people hid out there. We barely escaped into the cold forest with him shooting at us as we left.
Oh my. The murderer came after you?
Yes, the criminal, Damien Hucklesford, chased us all over the mountains. We ran, dodging bullets during the day and camped at night when the weather grew so cold we needed a fire. We knew Hucklesford would stay put then to stay warm, so we rested. It was a far cry from a bed, but it sufficed.
I guess the phones didn’t work?
That’s right. The service was interrupted by the storm.
You managed to survive, so I suppose it wasn’t too difficult?
I wouldn’t say that. Moose is an incredible person. He kept us ahead of the killer until near the end of our trek through the wilderness. We both suffered injuries and found ourselves in perilous situations though. For instance, I fell in a frozen lake.
An incredible person, huh? So, did you fall for this guy?
Well, I think a lot of him.
You’ve had quite an adventure, but you’re obviously fine now. How do explain that?
By the grace of God. Not only that, He brought good from bad.
Wow? How’d He do that?
Ah, I see my time’s up, but you can find out in the book. Here’s the link:
Four people face a winter storm in the wilderness. Two have lost their way. One has lost his purpose and one has lost his soul.
Headed home for Christmas vacation, Ruthie, a quiet professor, crosses paths with Moose, a football coach, on an icy blocked road in Western North Carolina. Amid a winter storm, they unknowingly take shelter in a killer’s hideout. Escaping under fire, they flee into a frozen, snow-covered forest. Trying to find their way out and shake the murderer, they dodge bullets each day until the temperature drops and the world turns quiet. Then, they set up camps to survive in the wilderness. Even though they grow attracted to each other, neither admits it until each of them suffers a frightening injury. Finally, they head to a house Ruthie sees in the distance. Will they meet a new friend, or a foe?
Award-winning author Gail Pallotta is a wife, mom, swimmer and bargain shopper who loves God, beach sunsets and getting together with friends and family. A former Grace Awards Finalist and a Reader’s Favorite 2017 Book Award winner, she’s published eight books, poems, short stories and two-hundred articles. Some of her articles appear in anthologies while two are in museums. She loves to connect with readers.
TRUSTING GOD ONE STEP AT A TIME by SHERRY SHINDELAR 5/16/2025 8:10:00 PM BY Patti Shene
FEATURED BOOK: Texas Divided
AUTHOR: Sherry Shindelar
PUBLISHER: Wild Heart Books
GENRE: Christian Historical Romance
SERIES OR STAND ALONE: Lone Star RedemptionSeries
TARGET AGE: Women thirty and up
IT IS MY PLEASURE TO WELCOME AUTHOR SHERRY SHINDELAR TO THE OVER 50 WRITER. SHERRY TALKS ABOUT FACING HER FEARS OF A DAUNTING CHALLENGE.
TRUSTING GOD ONE STEP AT A TIME
by
Sherry Shindelar
In preparation for Texas Divided and the one to follow, my husband and I decided to go on a Wild West adventure. We traveled to Oklahoma and Texas for spring break 2024. The first stop was the National Cowboy Museum. The museum is home to rooms of beautiful Western art, a collection of John Wayne’s guns from all of his movies, exhibits on cowboys, the frontier West, and Native American art. The most practical part for me was a life-size Western town. I saw a fully-stocked general store, a bank, a livery stable, a hotel, a doctor’s office, a saloon, and much more.
From there, we drove to West Texas and toured several museums and forts (Contrary to popular opinion, most frontier forts of the era didn’t have walls around them).
However, the most adventuresome part of the trip was our time spent at the Palo Duro Canyon in the Texas Panhandle. It’s the second-largest canyon in the U.S. and is lined with colorful mesas, said to resemble Spanish skirts. It was a favorite haunt of the Comanche. My husband and I stayed in stone cabins built in the 1930’s by the CCC at the bottom of the canyon. The stars at night were phenomenal.
During the daytime, we went hiking. The first day was a long trail, so we asked the clerk in the park office to recommend an easier hike for the second day. Wow! Was she mistaken! The “short” trail that she directed us to take was steep, filled with rocks, and washed-out patches that sloped toward the edge of the canyon. I was ready to give up in the first five minutes, but my husband encouraged me to go on to the top of the mesa. (I should also mention that I'm afraid of heights.)
Several times during the hike, I wanted to turn around and go back, but as I looked at what lay behind me, it appeared scarier than what lay ahead. I trudged along wondering how I would be able to deal with my fear on the return trip.
But my husband helped me navigate through the challenge. He told me to keep my eyes on my feet, stay close to the side of the mesa not the edge, and follow him.
And that's what I did. I didn't look at the steep pathway with its serious descents and occasional gaps with no stable ground for a solid step, and I didn't dare glance anywhere near the edge. I focused on my feet, one step at a time, following behind my husband, walking where he walked, and holding onto him in the gaps.
My tension eased. I could do this!
You'd better believe I breathed a sigh of relief when we reached flat ground. But I was thankful I hadn't given up and that my husband had encouraged me to go on. The journey had been worth it once I'd put my fear behind me.
And I realized God had a message for me in this hike. My vacation half spent, I'd already begun to feel the weight of the workload and writing tasks (I was behind schedule in writing Texas Divided, and I was preparing to launch Texas Forsaken) that awaited me upon my return home. I'd been wondering how I was going to navigate all of the responsibilities of the next few weeks, the busiest time of my year, this year busier than ever before.
Suddenly, I knew. I could do it one step at a time, focusing on the next task, instead of worrying about a dozen others that lay ahead, trusting the Lord to see me through the maze and realizing I don't have to carry the burden alone.
Our seven days in Texas and Oklahoma were awesome. I’m still benefiting from the rich research I gathered, but as I look back on this trip, I realize that a year later, the lessons from the hike of taking it one step at time and trusting the Lord to see me through are still as pertinent and needed today as they were last March, except this year, I’m launching Texas Divided and writing Texas Reclaimed.
Blurb for Texas Divided
He thought he was rescuing her from the Comanche. Now the Civil War soldier must prove he isn't the villain she thinks he is.
Driven by the looming expectation of becoming a suffocatingly proper lady, Morning Fawn is determined to escape the confines of her uncle’s plantation and return to her adoptive Comanche tribe. But with each failed attempt, her hopes dwindle, and she wonders if she'll ever find her way back home or if that world is forever lost to her.
Devon Reynolds, disillusioned by the price of affluence and the horrors of war, leaves his privileged life to join the Texas Rangers and later the cavalry. In the military service, he finds purpose . . . until he loses his wife during childbirth while he is away. In an attempt to redeem himself, he takes one last fateful mission to rescue Morning Fawn from the Comanche. But the results force him to question the righteousness of his actions and the cause he serves.
When Devon returns to Texas as a Yankee spy, his path crosses with Morning Fawn once more. Determined to save her from the prison of her uncle's house and to recover Texas from the Confederacy, Devon is drawn to her fierce spirit and unwavering resolve. But can two wounded souls, each fighting their own battles, find solace and love amidst the chaos of war?
Originally from Tennessee, Sherry Shindelar loves to take her readers into the past. A romantic at heart, she is an avid student of the Civil War and the Old West. She fell in love with writing when she was nine years old dreaming up stories while playing on her swing set. Decades later, she is living out her dream of writing stories from her heart and sharing them with the world. When she isn’t busy writing, she is an English professor, working to pass on her love of writing to her students. Sherry is an award-winning writer: 2023 ACFW Genesis finalist, 2021 & 2023 Maggie finalist, and 2022 Crown finalist. She currently resides in Minnesota with her husband of forty years. She has three grown children and three grandchildren
THE ROAD TO PUBLICATION...WITH HELP FROM FRIENDS
by
Patti Shene Gonzales
The road to publication isn’t easy. It takes a combination of circumstances and help from special friends to make it happen. I’d like to share the path I have traveled and how I came to sign my first publishing contract.
My dream of someday being an author started when I was young. I recall working on a novel in junior high school and sharing my weak scenes and stilted dialogue with my English teacher. I couldn’t say today what happened to that pitiful attempt of publishing success and the theme of the story has dissolved into a faded memory.
Years passed and I invested in my nursing career, my marriage, and the raising of my two children. The desire to write lurked in the deep corners of my brain like an elusive shadow. It manifested itself in various ways throughout my employment, rewriting policies and procedures for the facilities where I worked, turning creative phrases in routine nursing notes. Sometimes my words found their way into a newspaper article a carefully crafted note to a friend.
The VA hospital where I worked closed in 2001, I was able to retire at age fifty. My children had graduated from high school and ventured into higher education pursuits for their own career paths.
My thoughts turned more seriously to honing my writing skills in pursuit of that long awaited dream of publication. I read books on writing and devoured articles in Writer’s Digest Magazine. I learned about Marlene Bagnull’s Colorado Christian Writers Conference in Estes Park in the early 2000s. Marlene possessed a magnetism that drew me to her and infused in me a spirit of perseverance, a thirst for knowledge of the industry, and a drive to seek God’s purpose.
Marlene has directed the Greater Philadelphia and Colorado Christian Writers Conferences for four decades. Over the past twenty plus years, I’ve attended countless workshops, continuing sessions, fiction intensive clinics, motivating keynote speeches and awe-inspiring worship services at these two conferences. I’ve been blessed to form friendships with some of Christian fiction’s leading authors, been inspired by non-fiction books written by God-honoring, dedicated authors. I’ve developed an understanding of the most effective way to approach editors and agents with confidence. I’m learning how to adapt to industry changes and explore advances in technology.
Through all these years, I’ve let discouragement, doubt, and distractions stand in the way of my writing goals. Yet, Marlene never criticized or chastised me for my procrastination and poor excuses. She supported and encouraged me with every small step I took.
When I started podcasting with a co-host in 2015 and ran into a stumbling block, she urged me to begin my own show. She embraced my mission and invited me to teach at the conference. I hosted the show for a decade. Many of my guests were contacts I made through Marlene’s conferences who provided stellar interviews.
When the pandemic slowed everything to a standstill, Marlene amassed an amazing technological team who helped her launch a virtual conference. This July, she will direct the fourth Write His Answer Virtual Christian Writers Conference. If you have a desire to write, whether you’re a teen or pushing eighty, Marlene will inspire, encourage, lead, and pray you along your path in God’s plan to realize your publishing dreams.
At age seventy-three, my journey to a writing career is just beginning. Yesterday, I signed a three- book contract with Wild Heart Books. I’ve come to believe strongly in God’s timing, and I’m entering into this new career with tools I would not have acquired without Marlene’s conferences.
I’ll be serving on Marlene’s team this year and teaching a couple of workshops. Click here to explore the selection of continuing sessions, workshops, critique groups, round tables, panels and more that address topics from fiction writing techniques to marketing strategies at the 2025 Write His Answer Virtual Christian Writers Conference.
Registration is open! Sign up here today! RATES INCREASE AFTER JUNE 15TH
I’ll look forward to seeing you there!