Middle Childhood Education Major Publishes Novel |
Congratulations Michael Shepherd! |
| “I am just an ordinary person with an overactive imagination,” said Michael Shepherd, a middle childhood education major attending Ohio University’s Zanesville campus, who recently published his first novel, “After the Rose and Grace.” |
For Shepherd, the inspiration for his novel came from the movie “The Rose,” a biography of singer Janis Joplin’s life, starring Bette Midler.
“God put it in my heart to ask what would have happened if she had not died,” said Shepherd, who worked on his novel for a year searching for the answer to that question as he wrote.
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Using the movie as a starting point, Shepherd crafted a novel about the power of faith, love and friendship. “Rose goes from being a miserable superstar to a happy successful superstar for all the right reasons,” Shepherd said. Using inspiration for his characters from family members, Shepherd turned a film depicting a tragedy into a wholehearted novel packed with Christian messages of faith and love.
Since childhood Shepherd has used writing as an outlet, crafting many short stories and poems over the years with “topics ranging from abortion to cutting the grass.” Now a junior studying middle childhood education at Ohio University’s Zanesville campus, Shepherd spends his spare time spoiling his grandkids and playing drums in a Christian band.
“I thought maybe it would be an encouragement for other students to get works published if they knew one of their fellow students had,” said Shepherd. His book is available for purchase at Publish AMERICA’s online store, Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.
According to the book description on Amazon’s website, “After the Rose and Grace is a divinely inspired book about relationships. The people in this story portray varying relationships, such as those between husbands and wives, sisterly love, family love and the personal bond between God and these characters.”
“After the Rose and Grace is a tale of changes. The people change their lives for the advancement of God’s Word. The characters transform from selfish, self-oriented people to caring, loving and spirit-filled believers. One of the main characters, Gracie, is fashioned after the author’s oldest daughter, Tiffany. The rest of the family is in the book too, but you will have to find them. The story tells the reader that God has a plan for our lives which may not be the course we imagined. The course is predetermined and the results are inevitable. Michael Shepherd was inspired by God to write this book, and he hopes people will come to have a greater understanding of God’s love after reading it.”
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