Author Jenny Powell MD

I cannot remember when I transitioned from being read to, sitting on Mom or Dad’s lap, to reading by myself, but I know it was by age four, tagging along with my mother to the library and getting frustrated at the librarian who wouldn’t let me read outside my age range. I never dreamed of being a physician; the only thing I ever wanted to do was read and write my stories.

Because Watergate happened when I was in middle school, my heroes became Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the journalists who broke the story. By my sophomore year in high school, I had my future all planned: I would go to journalism school. My family even planned a vacation around visiting the campus of the University of Missouri and the School of Journalism there. I enrolled at the University of Illinois with a Pre-Journalism/Classics major, determined to make it into Mizzou’s journalism school as a junior.

But God had other ideas.

Midway into the first semester, He let me know I was not being true to His call. So, I did not reenroll after two semesters. Instead, I married, had children, and lived life. Until I was thirty when God called me to be a physician, something far beyond what I had ever dreamed. So, I reenrolled at the U of I, this time as a science major, graduated with a bachelor’s degree at age 34, attended U of I College of Medicine graduating at age 38, and completed residency three years later.

Now, after twenty years as a family physician, I have written a manuscript. My patients need not worry; I’m not quitting my day (and night) job. But there are stories that need to be told, and the Lord has said, write them. Thanks for sticking around for this leg of the journey with me as I cautiously enter the world of writing fiction.