Meet Elizabeth
Writing stories of grace, hope and thriving of the heart.
In a cozy loft near Lake Martin, Alabama, I write contemporary and historical happily-ever-after Christian romance. My characters struggle to overcome obstacles to God’s grace, surrender trust in Him and live happily ever after together in deep, rich faith.
When I was five, I realized that squiggly pencil lines on a piece of paper could be a story, so I squiggled away and “read” my stories to whoever would listen.
— Elizabeth St Germain
I discovered the power of happily-ever-after stories while my mother read me fairy tales published in Childcraft encyclopedias. As I realized that squiggly pencil lines on paper could be a story, I squiggled away, trading in the pencil for a vintage manual typewriter when I was twelve. Writing stories grew into an obsession, and I knew I was called to share my characters’ lives with readers one day.
In high school, I gained a following writing a mystery series in the school newspaper. Journalism was a natural major at Northern Illinois University because it was the writing ticket to a regular paycheck. After graduation, I moved to Alabama to be a newspaper reporter. There, I learned that real world newspaper reporting was not like writing happily-ever-after stories, and I moved from hammering out police reports to creating fantasy on magazine pages. It wasn’t exactly happily ever after, but I was getting paid to write.
At the same time, I met the love of my life, Rob, in a community theater production of “My Fair Lady.” After we married in a picturesque white country church, I wrote freelance magazine articles and managed my husband’s construction company office between the births of our three children in three years. I read Christian romance as an occasional escape. I couldn’t afford therapy, and with three kids in diapers, I needed stories of grace, hope and survival of the heart, even if I didn’t have time to write them myself.
Eight years later, my husband closed his business and returned to college at age forty-two. He finished his undergrad degree in religious studies, and we moved to Sewanee, Tennessee, where Rob entered seminary at The University of the South. We were poor, but not in spirit, as we joyfully roamed the trails and picnicked beside waterfalls in the Appalachian foothills of the forested Sewanee Domain.
I returned to magazine work a few years later and ghost-wrote the flowery descriptions of heirloom projects featured in sewing books. Now, my husband serves an episcopal parish near Alabama’s only Treasured Lake, and I am blessed to be editor-in-chief for the magazine division at Tallapoosa Publishers, Inc., home of “Lake” magazine - and at last to embrace the call to share happily-ever-after stories of Christian characters who live and love in relationship with God.
So now faith, hope, and love, abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love. 1 Corinthians 13:13
