Marsha Ward is an award-winning freelance writer and editor who has published over 900 articles, columns, poems and short stories. Marsha has been a writer and editor for four different newspapers published for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

• The Latter-day Sentinel
• The Latter-day Sun
• The Latter-day Journal
• The Beehive, Arizona Edition

Marsha also was the editor and publisher of a newsletter for writers and a small magazine: Aztec Peak and WestWard Quarterly, The Magazine of Family Reading. The latter is now edited by Shirley Anne and Richard Leonard and published by an arm of their Christian ministry, Laudemont Press.

Marsha works with other writers as a mentor, creative consultant, editor, workshop presenter, contest judge, coach, and teacher. In 1986 she founded American Night Writers Association (ANWA), a network for women writers of the LDS faith, and was the facilitator of the group for many years. She served as the first President, and now is serving as the Membership Secretary and Webmistress.

Marsha taught creative writing at Irving School and newspaper writing at Carmel Charter School. She has read her work at Yavapai College and the Sharlot Hall Museum in Prescott, Arizona. Her current projects include completing her third Owen Family novel, and finishing another novel set in Arizona in the 1890s.

Marsha has won many writing prizes and received "Special Honorable Mention" in several national contests.  Among her recent accomplishments are the following awards:

• September 2001: Second Place in Fall Contest, Superstition Mountain Scribes
• 2001: Finalist in Short Fiction Awards with "War Party," ByLine Magazine
• March 2002: Winner in Annual Poetry Contest with "My Mother's Bureau Drawer," Superstition Mountain Scribes
• November 2002: Winner in Poetry Competition with "My Mother's Bureau Drawer," Arizona Association of American Mothers Inc.
• March 2003: Winner of national Alice Abel Literature Competition in Poetry with "My Mother's Bureau Drawer," American Mothers, Inc.
  
  
  
• February 2004: Fourth in Top Ten Finalists in the 2003 Readers' Poll in the category of "Novel - Mainstream" with novel Ride to Raton, Preditors & Editors
  
  

Marsha is a member of:

• Western Writers of America, Inc.
  
  
  
• American Night Writers Association (ANWA)
  
  
  
• LDStorymakers, Inc.
  
  
  
• Women Writing the West
  
  
  

Marsha is based in Central Arizona, and is happy to give talks to writers' and book readers' groups, and to civic organizations. She can be reached by e-mail at marshaw (at) MarshaWard.com.

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