Before We Were Yours (Wingate) - Author Bio

Author Bio
• Birth—1964-65
• Where—Germany
• Raised—Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA
• Education—B.A./B.S., Oklahoma State University
• Awards—(see below)
• Currently—lives in Menro, Arkansas

Lisa Wingate is an American inspirational speaker and the author of more than 20 novels, many of them bestsellers. Wingate was born in Germany but raised in the U.S. state of Oklahoma where she attended Oklahoma State University, earning her Bachelor's degree in English and communications.

She married her husband, Sam, a science teacher and rancher from Texas, in 1988. They lived with their two sons in various towns in central Texas, eventually settling in Menro, Arkansas—in the Ouachita Mountains of southwest Arkansas, not far from the Texas border.

Wingate said she has always been writing, even as a child. As a first-grader, while her classmates played their way through recess, Wingate stayed at her desk creating stories. Her teacher Mrs. Krackhardt noticed her writing and ended up reading the stories to Wingate's classmates. On Wingate's final report card, her teacher wrote, "Keep that pencil working with that wonderful imagination, Lisa!

As Wingate told the Community Advocate, the hometown paper in Massachusetts where that elementary school is still located:

I went from being a shy transfer kid with no friends to a wonderful writer. I felt that writing was something special, and I was something special.… Even though we moved again and left that school behind, I always thought of myself as a writer because Mrs. Krackhardt told me I was.

Years later, in 2001, after publishing her first book, Tending Roses, Wingate tried to locate her teacher…but without success. It wasn't until 2012, when she published The Language of Sycamores Tree—and wanted to dedicate the book to her—that a local bookstore owner recognized Mrs. Krackhardt and told her about Wingate.

Wingate is one of the few authors who has been able to make the cross over between the Christian and mainstream markets. She publishes works with Bethany House and Penguin Random House. Not only do her works generate large sales, they have also won or been nominated for awards—the Pat Conroy Southern Book Prize, the Oklahoma Book Award, the Utah Library Award, the Carol Award, the Christy Award, and the RT Reviewers’ Choice Award. (Adapted from various online sources. Retrieved 7/18/2017.)