Patricia Raybon is an award-winning author and journalist whose personal essays on faith, family and race have been published in The New York Times Magazine, Newsweek, USA Today, USA Weekend and featured on National Public Radio’s Weekend Edition.
A former Sunday magazine editor at The Denver Post--and a former features reporter at The Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News--her feature articles have won the Sweepstakes Award from the Associated Press of Colorado, the first-place General Reporting Award from the Society of Professional Journalists' Colorado chapter and several awards for feature writing and reporting from National Press Women and Colorado Press Women, among others.
Her first book, My First White Friend, her piercing personal story on racial forgiveness, won a Christopher Award for "artistic excellence affirming the highest values of the human spirit."
Her new book I Told the Mountain to Move, about her struggle as a modern Christian woman to learn how to pray, was a finalist in Christianity Today Magazine's 2006 Book of the Year contest in the "Spirituality" category.
"Raybon’s writing is luscious," says the New Orleans Times-Picayune, and that summary captures perhaps best the moving appeal of Patricia Raybon’s unusual blend of talents.
A spiritual prayer warrior, she brings a fiercely honest but gentle clarity to the three prongs of her creative life. She is an award-winning writer of books and essays, a (recently retired) journalism professor at the University of Colorado where she was a tenured associate professor, and she is a motivational trainer and speaker to clients ranging from churches to boardrooms to newsrooms.
It’s all inspired teaching to Patricia whose clients, students and readers cite her transparent passion and professionalism.
Patricia’s insightful essays have been reprinted in more than a dozen college textbooks including The Prentice Hall Guide for College Writers, Guide to Writing Magazine Nonfiction, Models for Writers: Short Essays for Composition, The Norton Sampler: Short Essays for Composition, The Writing Process, Short Takes: Model Essays for Composition, among others.
She has presented keynotes and motivational workshops to such groups as the American Association of Sunday and Features Editors, the Academy of Christian Editors, Texas Association of Family and Marriage Therapy, Teaching for a Change Conference, Women of Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, National Writers Workshop, MOPS, National Diversity Conference on Youth, The January Series of Calvin College, among others.
Patricia has also appeared on NBC’s Today Show, PBS’ Tavis Smiley Show, NPR’s Talk of the Nation, NPR’s Weekend Edition, Pacifica Radio, the Moody Network, ABC Radio Network, American Urban Radio Network, DayStar Television and scores of other radio and television broadcasts to discuss matters of faith, race, family and writing.
Closer to home, Patricia is a wife, mother and grandmother. She and her husband have two "fabulous" grown daughters, one "awesome" son-in-law and two "amazing" grandchildren. She is also grateful for her beloved personal and professional friends -- and for "every single reader" of her essays and books.
