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Deb Raney
Hatteberg's People
Reporter: Larry Hatteberg
| November 28, 2004--On Hatteberg’s People, Deborah Raney is a Hesston, Kansas writer whose work has made it to Hollywood. But despite the glitter, this woman believes her future is with her family on the prairie. |
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"I am a romantic. And I like to have candles lit and music playing and a steaming cup of coffee or tea beside me. I don't know, I guess those are just things that help set the mood for the kind of books that I write."
When Deborah Raney pours her soul into a cold computer….there is a warmth wrapped in every word.
"It's the way I express myself and it always has been."
Working in her living room surrounded by all things creative she remembers the early years.
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“I can remember that summer when I was eleven or twelve, I spent that Summer reading Laura Ingalls Wilders Little House on the Prairie Books.
In the back of the book, it said that Laura was a Kansas farm girl who turned to writing.”
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"It was like something clicked right there and it was like, Oh my goodness, I'm a little Kansas farm girl, maybe someday I could grow up and write a book too."
That dream turned into reality.
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Deborah is now one of the country's leading Christian writers.
Some of her eleven books include A Scarlet Cord, After the Rains and Beneath a Southern Sky.
"They are Christian fiction or inspirational fiction as some people call it, but hopefully, the are just good stories."
For years, she was a stay-at-home mom of three, and then came along a 'oops' baby.
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| "Which was wonderful, but it came at a time, which after being a stay-at-home mom for twenty years I really needed to go back to work to help the other kids go to college. And I desperately wanted to stay at home with our little girl, our youngest daughter, so I started thinking what can I do to make money at home and writing was where my talent seemed to lie and that's what I started doing." |
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"What it meant for me was not that I would get to go to Hollywood and go to a film premier, but that I was going to get to stay home with our little girl and that for me was the biggest blessing for me, it really was."
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And there were more miracles in her life. Her success was not destined to be only the printed page but the big screen as well. One of her books, A Vow to Cherish, is now a Hollywood motion picture.
"I've seen it, I don't know how many times I've watched this, but I still choke up every time." |
"And part of it is the story and part of it is everything that happened to me through this story."
"And I'm just a Kansas farm girl. I have never ever felt like a part of Hollywood. In Hesston, I'm just a mom. That's the identity that I cherish.”
"I hope to be writing till the day I die."
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| Larry’s Note: Deborah Raney’s movie “A Vow To Cherish” will be shown on KAKE, Channel 10 on December 10th at 7 p.m. |
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