The Life and Times of Talena Winters (aka The Much-Too-Long Bio) 

Talena Winters, currently of Peace River, Alberta, Canada, has been obsessed with stories for her whole life. She showed promise as a composer and a writer from a young age, winning several poetry awards in elementary school. Schoolmates knew her as a bookworm, and she could rarely be caught without a book in hand. At age nine, she saw The Sound of Music while stuck in the hospital with a broken arm over Christmas and has been hooked on musical theatre ever since. She sees it as the perfect marriage between stories and music.

She holds a diploma in Jazz Piano and Composition from Red Deer College. It was in college that she met Candace Marshall, who would become a lifelong friend and co-writer. The two of them are currently working on a musical called Queen of Persia, based on the biblical story of Esther.

While her children were young, Talena set aside most of her creative pursuits to focus on being a mom. It was at that time that she began blogging (to “preserve her sanity,” as she says), rediscovering her love of creative writing. Over the years, several readers told her she should write a book, and for some reason, her brain always heard novel. She shunned the idea, not feeling equipped to take on that shiny—and rather massive—goal. She did, however, begin publishing her knitwear designs under the label My Secret Wish by Talena, and won several songwriting awards.

In 2010, she got the idea for a mermaid story that she wanted to read—but knew she would also have to write. She took a course on novel writing from Holly Lisle and wrote her first book, The Friday Night Date Dress, as practice while taking that course. Not long after that, Talena and her husband adopted their fourth son (after three natural children) and writing pursuits were relegated to the back burner. However, at her mother's constant prompting, she eventually decided to try self-publishing the story, also for practice.

The morning after uploading that story to her distributor for publication in June 2015, her youngest son was killed in a tragic vehicle accident. This had a profound impact on her views of life, faith, and love. Although she had intended to write her mermaid story next, it seemed too frivolous at the time—she knew she needed to write something deeper as she processed her grief. God gave her the final piece for a book idea that had been brewing since she took Holly's class, and Finding Heaven, the story of a woman healing from an abusive past, was published in 2017.

By January of 2016, Talena knew she wanted to become a writer full-time. She got a job freelancing for regional magazine Move Up in June of that year and sold her online retail equine tack business in October, taking a leap of faith to pursue her passion. In 2017, she began taking editing clients, focusing on developmental editing for speculative fiction, romance, and memoir. After four and a half years with Move Up, she left the position of lead writer to pursue editing and fiction writing full time. She hasn’t looked back.

In everything Talena creates, whether it be clothing designs, music, or stories, her goal is to inspire her audience to be better, reach higher, and realize their full potential in whatever area they are struggling. She believes that each of us has a purpose and can make a difference in the world. Not only do we need to ‘be the change we want to see,’ we also need to create the magic we hope for.

And that mermaid story? As of November 2021, the young adult epic historical fantasy Rise of the Grigori series consists of two full-length novels and a prequel novella. Talena continues to write stories of love and hope that she hopes bring a little magic to the lives of her readers.