JILL OCKHARDT BLAUFUSS AMY PETERSON REBECCA MEIDINGER

Jill Ockhardt Blaufuss grew up in western North Dakota and graduated from MSUM Moorhead with a BA in Photojournalism. She has an extensive background in video production and still photography, and currently combines the two with her unique work in baby photography. She is a commercial photographer in Fargo as well as a photographer and writer for Area Woman.

Jill is a wife and mother and has a passion for cooking and hosting dinner parties, traveling, helping others and the history of the natives and settlers of her home state. Among her adventures she has lived in Germany, volunteered in Ghana, Africa, visited Cuba and plans to travel more of the world for both work and pleasure.

This issue, Jill wrote our cover story!

Jill Kandel

Rebecca Meidinger is a speaker, Bible teacher, and Mom-blogger who has spoken in schools, churches, camps and conferences throughout the states and internationally. Rebecca’s passion is to speak to teens and women about their identity in Christ, their worth as children of God and the freedom found in Jesus.

Rebecca and her husband Paul live in Fargo, ND. Paul is a captain in the Fargo Fire Department and Rebecca is a stay-at-home mom to their four young children. Rebecca is active in her church and loves the outdoors, running, hiking biking, baking, touring area parks, camping, reading, watching movies, drinking coffee with girlfriends and dating her husband.

Amy Peterson has been living in the Fargo/ Moorhead area since 1997 when she began her freshman year at Concordia College. While unsure of how she would use her degree in English Literature and Communications, she found a job after graduation that allowed her to put her newfound knowledge to good use and helped her pay off those pesky student loans. Though she is originally from Long Lake, MN, a western suburb of Minneapolis, she, along with her husband and their five children, is proud to call Fargo home.

BKandel's book, So Many Africas: Six Years in a Zambian Village won the 2014 Autumn House Nonfiction Prize. Her essays have been published in many literary journals including The Missouri Review, Gettysburg Review, Brevity, River Teeth, Pinch, and Image. You can view a two minute book trailer, see photos, and learn more about So Many Africas on Kandel's website www.jillkandel.com where she also blogs about writing, publication, and the life of a writer.