The lighter side of faith

 Willow Feller can sum up her journey from hobby writer to published author in one word: research. Lots of it.

The former Kalispell resident published her first novel this year. She has seen her byline in the online magazine Burnside Writers Collective. Her blog has gained a steady following since its launch last November.

Her recent success began among the shelves of the writing section at the Big Horn County Library almost two decades ago. Feller began researching writing when she sought a creative outlet as a mother.

As a child, Feller didn’t aspire to being a writer; rather, she wanted to drive a fun-looking vehicle as a meter maid. Feller — then Willow Carson — was a young child when the family moved to the Flathead Valley after her father retired from his military career. Feller attended Cayuse Prairie School and then Flathead High School.

As a senior at Flathead, Feller got a job as a bank teller and considered a job in business or finance. But shortly after graduation in 1982, she got married, moved with her husband to Canada and was soon a full-time mother.

Nine years and five children later, Feller divorced and moved back to Kalispell, where she met and married Mike Feller. The family moved to Hardin, where baby Gabriel joined them.

It was in Hardin that Feller first fell in love with writing.

Feller’s interest was piqued in the early 1990s when her husband brought home the family’s first computer. Feller had always loved typing, and when her husband taught her word processing, she was hooked on how easy it made writing.

“I was sitting down, just typing away,” she said. “I thought, ‘This is just unbelievable.’”

Her youngest children were still at home, but the older ones were at school, and Feller had more time on her hands than she had enjoyed in years. She spent it at the computer.

“I had enough time freed up to sit down and try to come up with articles that I could submit somewhere,” Feller said. “Then I realized if I wanted to write, I needed to learn the craft.”

Her options for learning were limited in Hardin. There was no college and Feller didn’t have access to the Internet. She did, however, have a library card.

“I checked out every single book at the Hardin library on writing,” she said, adding that she was surprised how many writing books the small-town library offered. “There are a lot of resources out there.”

During her research, when Feller read up on everything from grammar to plot development, she discovered she definitely was a “word person.” That conviction was solidified when the family moved in 2003 to Bonners Ferry, Idaho, where Feller had a whole new library — and, at long last, the Internet — at her disposal.

Even as she studied the craft, Feller wrote as a hobby. She discovered a love for humor writing when she began sending fictional Christmas letters to friends and family.

“I remember getting everybody’s letters, and I thought, ‘Man, their families are so amazing. Their kids are spectacular,’” Feller said.

“We went through some real issues with our kids. My marriage wasn’t always perfect. Our lives weren’t. But I felt like people were reporting to me all these amazing things.

“So I thought, ‘Fine, I’ll just make something up.’”

Feller’s letters told ridiculous stories of driving to North Dakota to pick up a child after a tornado had deposited him there and of her husband’s (nonexistent) stint in prison. The tales were outrageous enough that she didn’t expect anyone to believe them; Feller only sought to put her own spin on the hyped-up holiday form letter.

“I thought, ‘That’ll teach ’em,’” Feller said. “But my mom actually had relatives that thought it was true.”

Eventually family members caught on that Feller was pulling their legs. Many relatives started looking forward to the annual bit of fiction. Feller said she stopped writing the letters when the novelty wore off after a few years, but the experience had given her something that would shape her future as a writer.

“It helped me realize I really could make people laugh,” she said. “My writing did have credibility.”

With that confidence boost, Feller began writing in earnest. She wrote a young adult novel, just to get the feel of how to organize chapters and tell a complete story. She also began submitting articles to magazines for publication and went through what she calls “the necessary rejection.”

Eventually, Feller’s work paid off. She finished a novel, “The Epic Undoing of Haley Ann Ewing,” and found a company that wanted to publish it. Evergreen Press published the novel in January.

The novel tells the story of a girl who receives back on herself the judgments she makes of others. Feller said the idea was born of her own discovery that the Bible’s admonition to “‘judge not lest you be judged’ is a lot like gravity.” Feller said she can’t count the number of times she has judged someone, only to find herself at the receiving end of judgment.

It’s a theme Feller explores further in her blog, “The Pharisee in Me.” In the blog, she writes about what she calls the “darker aspects” of her Christian faith. Feller tackles heavy topics, including legalism and judgment, but she does it with her characteristic humorous bent.

“I have a way of driving a point across about the darker aspects of faith, but I make us all laugh while we do it,” she said.

Feller is about two-thirds of the way through writing the sequel to her first novel. She hopes that “Kathryn Dean’s Repurposing,” which tells the story of a secondary character in the first novel, will be published in early 2014. Then she will start the final piece of the trilogy.

She is confident she has found a market for her unique voice.

“It’s a market niche that’s pretty open at this point,” Feller said. “There’s not a lot of Christian humor stuff out there.”

For more information about Feller, including access to her blog and signed copies of her novel, visit www.willowfeller.com. “The Epic UnDoing of Haley Ann Ewing” also is available on Amazon.com and in Kalispell at The Bookshelf.

Reporter Kristi Albertson may be reached at 758-4438 or by email at kalbertson@dailyinterlake.com.