At the onset, self-isolation can sound like a welcome challenge—almost vacation-like, especially if you’d been burning the candle at both ends for a while beforehand. But because we’re a society driven by structure, alarm clocks, and deadlines, unless we get really creative boredom is bound to set in eventually.
Readers know that there are few better ways to beat boredom than by getting lost in a really good book. Books can inspire. They can take us on a journey through other cultures and times. They can teach a new skill or give our wild imaginations a place to run uninhibited.
So while you’re searching Goodreads or scrolling through the selections available on your e-reader, consider taking a different approach and choose to become a little more acquainted with all the local talent we have right here at home.
Over the course of the next couple of weeks, The Citizen will introduce you to a few of these local artists, some of whom you may already know because they work, play, and live among us. In short, these writers also happen to be your neighbours.
In this first look at local talent, we’ll explore some of the inspirational writers who reside here in the rural southeast. These are authors who have courageously told their own stories or shared their wealth of knowledge and experience to bring hope and light into other people’s lives.
Sarah Brandt
One of Niverville’s newest published authors is Sarah Brandt, who released her debut book Blossom like Eden in February of this year. This work of Christian non-fiction analyzes the eight gifts found in the book of Ephesians and explores how, through them, the reader can find fullness of life.
The book takes us alongside Brandt as she sets out to find true identity and worth in the eyes of her Creator.
“I had experienced a life of transformation and a passion erupted,” Brandt says of her desire to write the book. “As God led me into deeper vulnerability and freedom to share my story, the words became a travelling tool for the reader to journey alongside me in my transformation.”
Sylvia St. Cyr
Another author is Niverville resident Sylvia St. Cyr, who published her first tome back in 2017. Its title, Love vs. Fear, is perhaps more timely than ever in these days of uncertainty and viral threat. Through the pages of this book, St. Cyr finds hope for overcoming fear in her deeply rooted faith.
“Everyone battles some sort of fear, whether that is fear of flying, public speaking, your mother-in-law, or failure,” says St. Cyr. “So the question remained, how do we fight fear so that it doesn’t ruin our lives? A couple of years ago, I read the Bible verse 1 John 4:18, which says, ‘There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear,’ and I was intrigued. What does this mean in a practical sense? How can I live in that love zone?”
From the pages of her novel rise stories of imperfect people who came face to face with perfect love to overcome great fears.
St. Cyr says she spent years on a journey of discovering God’s love, and she eventually felt the desire to share this journey with others through her writing.
“I love reading non-fiction books that uplift and inspire,” St. Cyr explains. “I find the best non-fiction to be books that I can relate to in some way, but that also push me to grow and learn something amazing, either about myself or the world. This is the hope for my book as well, that anyone who has ever wondered if God’s love was actually real and personal, come to know God, who is love, in a deeper way. When you know your identity, it allows you to live in love, which means that the fears in your life diminish more and more.”
If Sylvia’s name sounds familiar, it might be because she’s also a regular contributor to The Citizen.
Chad Eddy
Self-published author Chad Eddy hopes to reach young men who have become sceptics of the Christian faith through his book Remember the Gospel. Eddy released the book in the summer of 2017.
“I spent over a decade in pastoral ministry and I have many friends who have struggled with, or even walked away from their faith for reasons that have nothing to do with the essential message of Jesus, what we call the gospel,” says Eddy. “I’ve found that there are many peripheral issues in Christianity that can trip us up, distract us, and cause us to doubt. I want to bring people back to the gospel again and again, and that’s the heart of this book.”
Eddy’s goal through the book is to help people get unstuck in their faith and begin to make positive forward movement. He says the essential message of the gospel can easily get buried beneath religious agendas, political positions, moral issues, personal freedoms, and ethical beliefs.
Alma Barkman
Alma Barkman is a well-known Winnipeg author who has published nine inspirational books and devotionals over the span of more than 40 years. Some of her titles include Two Old Goats and One Good Shepherd and Purrables: Words of Wisdom from the World of a Cat.
“About the time our oldest son had acne and our youngest had diaper rash, I received my first book contract from Moody Publishers,” says Barkman’s online bio. “While the toddlers played demolition derby over the manuscript with their toy cars, I hammered away on an old Underwood typewriter. The result was a women's devotional called Sunny Side Up. Moody went on to publish four more of my books, one of which caught the eye of an editor at Daily Guideposts and I contributed there for sixteen years.”
Since that time, more than a thousand of her articles or poems have also been published in a wide variety of newspapers, periodicals, and Christian publications.
