Teena Myers

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Rory and I were strolling through the grounds of the Louisiana Book Festival. To escape the blazing rays of the sun, we ducked into a tent to browse books in relative comfort. We stopped at the table of a retired attorney selling a fiction book that did not interest me. She offered me her first book, written to prove that the gospel accounts of Jesus’s life and resurrection were credible evidence acceptable in a court of law. That subject interested me. I smiled at my husband. He pulled his wallet from his pocket. Before we departed, she invited me to hear her speak at the Southern Christian Writers Guild (SCWG).

I not only attended the SCWG meeting; I became a member. Initially, I attended sporadically, as I continued to look for a place of service in the church. When the Northshore Bureau Chief for NOLA.com spoke at a meeting, my search for a place of service ended.

At that time, NOLA.com was the stepchild of the Times-Picayune, the largest newspaper in Louisiana. NOLA hosted leftovers from the printed edition in digital format before digital news put many print newspapers out of business.

She shared her filmmaking and writing experiences and then invited the members of the Guild to post articles to a new blog on the newspaper’s website: Faith, Beliefs, and Spirituality Blog.

“What’s a blog?” inquired one of the Guild members.

She explained that “blog” is short for “web log.” Whenever someone posts an article, the top article moves down, forming a log of material on a specific subject. All interested Guild members would be assigned a password to the blog, so they could post an article on the theme of faith, beliefs, or spirituality at their discretion. 

I had a lot of Bible lessons at home that could be fodder for the new blog, but I had moved on to writing short fiction stories and skits. My first fiction story, “Eliohym’s Words”, about a wavering angel, was a bestseller on the now-defunct Amazon Shorts program. I had planned to write a series of stories about an angel named Waver, which also described his nature. But Amazon’s exclusive contract prohibited me from using the material elsewhere throughout the universe. That is not a metaphor to make a point. The contract said they owned the rights throughout the universe.

The skits I wrote were my only option for the new blog. I raised my hand to get her attention. “What about videos of skits performed by my drama team?”

“That would be a great idea,” she replied.

I left the meeting interested but not enthused. Until I did some research. At that time, NOLA.com was the sole internet affiliate of the Times-Picayune, the largest newspaper in the state of Louisiana. The respected print edition of the newspaper circulated among thousands. Their website stats were phenomenal—millions of page views monthly. Most of the viewers were not looking for something religious, but that much traffic guaranteed an audience for the blog and gave me a platform.

A venue for an author to expose his or her work to an audience is important. There is no point in writing if no one reads it, and it’s the first thing a publisher looks for when considering new authors. She had not offered compensation. I settled for the compensation of a “platform”, thinking I would be one of many contributors. I planned to post the videos of my drama team performing the skits and write an occasional devotion.

When I received my password, I posted an article about my sister’s long struggle with drug abuse and followed that article with a testimony of an answered prayer. A smattering of other articles appeared on the blog. Then I posted “Immigration”, the video of a skit I co-wrote with a friend about three people attempting to enter Heaven illegally.

While attending a ministers’ meeting, the presbyter talked about the miraculous rebirth of House of Prayer which had been destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. “Someone should record these stories,” he said. I knew the pastor of the church, so I did. I made a video of the pastor and his wife talking about their journey from youth pastors to senior pastors, the loss of their church after Hurricane Katrina, and their decision to rebuild. I edited the video into a six-part series and released one part on the blog weekly.

One day, I noticed that I was the only one posting to the blog and wondered if I was wasting my time. I contacted the Bureau Chief, and said, “I thought writing for the blog was a collaborative effort.”

My statement, more of a question, was met with silence. She didn’t know why the others were not posting material. My next question: “Can you tell me if anyone is reading the blog?”

“I’ll check and let you know,” she said.

Several days later, she sent me an email with the stats. “The blog is widely read,” began the email. Since its inception, it had received 400 unique views weekly; an average of 2,000 people visited the blog monthly. In the words of one pastor, “That is more than most churches average in attendance.”

The bureau chief had envisioned a community of writers submitting witty prose about the spirituality of New Orleans. She got a community of one—me. Two years later, she moved to California, and I continued to write for blog for the next ten years.

God had given me a venue larger than the combined church attendance of the pastors who suppressed my talents.

TO BE CONTINUED…