If you’d like me to attend your event, please contact me using the Contact form on this website.
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I LOVE doing in home (Phoenix area) book clubs too!
For book clubs outside of Phoenix, let’s make some arrangements! Use the Contact form on this website.
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Let’s chat about what I know! I love being on podcasts. Here are three I’ve guested for:
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PRESS KIT
The serious bio:
Ora Smith, a genealogist who writes Heritage Fiction, creates fascinating stories about her ancestors based on true narratives. She loves nothing better than to be whisked off to past eras to meet those whose lives are worth sharing. Written like regular novels (don’t worry, not a dry genealogy or history book) and all thoroughly researched and grounded on true events.
As an author and artist, Ora Smith has created children’s books. She wrote and illustrated her Stories of Light children’s picture book series to help children understand what the Light of Christ can mean to them.
2023 brought in her first Young Adult novel series Jamestown’s Boy Interpreter, books based on true events of Thomas Savage, a thirteen-year-old who was traded to the Natives and lived with them for over two years, becoming a friend with Pocahontas. Teens will love the adventure and adults will love the fascinating true tales. Find a review by the Historical Novel Society for Trading Thomas here.
Ora is also a seamstress, lover of a good book, traveler, antiquer, upcycler, and history buff. She’s one of those people who always has a project she’s excited about. Although she’s lived in Arizona since 1986, she spent her early life in Lake Tahoe, California, where her passion to write blossomed on a tranquil riverbank with a beautiful backdrop of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
Passionate about art, history, and writing in high school and college, Ora was pulled in many creative directions. She focused her studies on clothing and textiles with dreams of becoming a costume designer for Hollywood movies. Although the dream faded, she still watches bad movies if the costumes are good. Her heart lifts to see clothing authentically recreated for an epic or fantasy movie where someone used their extraordinary imagination for original designs.
She received her Master of Arts in Creative Writing at Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania where her thesis became the book Unacknowledged: The Possible Biological Mother of Howard Hughes. She placed first in a short story writing contest sponsored by Writers Unite to Fight Cancer in partnership with the Virginia G. Piper Creative Writing Center at Arizona State University. Her historical novel, White Oak River, won first place in the 2017 Phoenix Rattler Contest sponsored by Christian Writers of the West (an ACFW affiliate). Her historical novel, The Pulse of His Soul, was a finalist for the Whitney Awards for both General Fiction and Best Debut Novel, and was also reviewed by the Historical Novel Society.
Ora’s been a wife and mother for over forty years, raising four sons and one daughter. She has the five cutest grandchildren in existence.
For more than twenty years, Ora’s taught family history research at conferences and to individuals.
As a mother, genealogist, artist, and faithful follower of Jesus Christ, Ora blends her understanding and unique skills to create faith inspired stories that she hopes will give others an added testimony of God’s goodness.
Although she writes on many subjects, she’s sure you’ll find in her writings a book that’s meant just for you.
