- November 25, 2024
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When Cindy Freed Lescarbeau was named the Word Weaver International 2020 Writer of the Year at the Florida Christian Writers Conference in October, she couldn't believe it.
She looked to her husband Stephen and son Julian, who accompanied her for the awards ceremony, and they looked at her. It felt like a dream, she said. Despite her love of writing, Lescarbeau said she never expected to be recognized in this manner.
“I was in shock," Lescarbeau said. "I did not think that I would in my lifetime get anything like that.”
The Ormond Beach resident has been attending the annual writers conference for three years. She never formally studied writing, but she's always had a passion for the craft. She wrote her first poem at 6 years old, and though she eventually went on to study fashion and found FREED Performing Arts, a local faith-based non-profit performing arts studio, she kept writing. It made her happy, she said.
Then when the coronavirus pandemic struck, she was recommended by her doctor to stay home from the studio due her kidney transplant, which saved her life in 2013. She continued to manage the studio remotely, but she also had something she hadn't had in a while: extra time.
"I just got this thing in my head," Lescarbeau said. "I've been writing since I was 6. I'm 58. For once in my life I have the opportunity to do this the right way and to put 100% of myself into."
So, she decided to enter the conference's writing contest. And because she wasn't going to do this halfway, she decided to submit an entry for almost every category.
“The only thing I didn’t attempt was the novel, because I knew I didn’t have time for that,” she said laughing.
Lescarbeau spent one month studying the tools of writing before spending another month writing. Without the help of her husband and her editors Crystal Bowman and Lindsey Brackett, both whom she met at prior conferences, she would not have been able to achieve her goal.
She won five awards for her works at the conference, including an honorable mention for her poem “The Poem Factory," third place for her early chapter book "The Crown of Dreams," and second place for her flash fiction romance “Love at First Flight."
Lescarbeau said she wants to encourage others who write for a hobby to follow their passion. She didn't know she could one day write books, she said, and now, she has landed a contract with Focus on the Family’s Clubhouse Jr. magazine. One of her works will be featured in one of their 2021 editions.
“It feels like a dream, and I’m so grateful to God because he’s given me the tools to be able to do it, and the inspiration and the strength, because it’s hard," Lescarbeau said. "Writing is hard.”
Visit cindylescarbeau.com/
