Paula Benge, like many writers, began as a reader. She grew up with cowboys. No surprise, then, that her two favorite books as a child were about animals—The Black Stallion and 101 Dalmatians. All of her life, she had a book close in case there were a few minutes to read, but she never admitted out loud that she wanted to write a book.

After her kids became teenagers, she went the way of science and became a personal trainer, passionate about functional fitness. It wasn’t until she was facing an empty nest that Paula joined a writing club and started writing. She spent the first years learning the craft, participating in a critique group, and going to writing conferences. Between watching college softball and working, she eventually finished her first novel, At the Heart of the Game, a young adult contemporary coming-of-age novel that won first place in the Oklahoma Writers Federation contest in 2016.