Earlier writing...
Nilah Rodgers Turner spent ten years writing features and news as a staff writer and a frequent contributer of features to The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. Her first stint was with the Levelland Daily Sun News. From Levelland she went to the Lamb County Leader-News in Littlefield, her hometown where she was born and attended school from first grade through graduation.
From Littlefield she moved to the piney woods of East Texas and often visited the historical town of Jefferson and Caddo Lake which is the setting for HOME to HIDDEN SPRINGS.
In this area, she served as editor of two newspapers.
Nilah has dozens of dramatic and human-interest stories published in major national magazines including Reader’s Digest, Good Housekeeping and Ladies Home Journal.
National writing awards garnered from these published writings include first place from the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, the Distinguished Service Award from Special Olympics, and the Public Service Award from the National Kidney Foundation.
When the editors she worked with at Readers Digest and Good Housekeeping left their positions, and magazines moved toward in-house writing, she got her real estate broker’s license and opened her first real estate office.
After several years buying and selling real estate, instead of retiring, she returned to her love of writing. This time, developing fiction.
She discovered a love for research and history in college. Infatuated with the Civil War era, she unearthed the Civil War’s Southern perspective and Texans’ involvement in this awful debacle -- and stories not told in text books or novels.
HOME TO HIDDEN SPRINGS is shown through the eyes of 19 year-old Elizabeth who moves to the raw Republic of Texas in 1842 to grab a land grant of 640 acres and goes through famine, epidemics, depressions and recessions and the Civil War.
Her characters' adversity mold and strengthen them in HOME TO HIDDEN SPRINGS, written by a woman for women who like history and emotion. Outspoken Miley is a little slave girl who is more memorable that Prissy in Gone With the Wind, and Miley's mama has a bigger role than Butterfly McQueen.
The depressions and financial panics of a 150 years ago are reminiscent of present problems in our country.