COVER STORY
honorable mentions, professors’ praise. But it wasn’t until years later, working as Education Director for a local church, that she realized how urgently her writing could serve others. Sunday mornings often brought frantic calls from teachers suddenly unable to lead their classes. With minutes before start time, Mann found herself telling panicked volunteers, “Go in there and do something.” She knew there had to be a better way. So she wrote one. Drawing from decades of personal Bible lessons stored on her computer, she reformatted 52 of them into clear, bold-prompted guides— lessons that any substitute, even with no preparation, could teach confidently. The book Teacher Friendly Bible Lessons on Short Notice was born not from literary ambition but from necessity. That origin story remains Mann’s signature: every book she has written since began as a solution to someone’s problem. Her process is surprisingly disciplined. Books rooted in her existing lesson library take months; those written from scratch take about six. She keeps a steady schedule, often drawing from earlier teaching material and her own memories to make abstract Scripture feel immediate. “I draw heavily on my life experiences,” she explains. Each lesson ends with questions—simple but piercing—that bridge ancient text and modern life: What can you learn about God from this lesson? Who needs to hear this today? Those life experiences are Mann’s most distinctive writing quirk. Her childhood on a farm, her years in small churches and small schools, meeting her future husband at a summer camp when they were thirteen, navigating Army life, returning home, and spending 37 years teaching Bible lessons inside the county jail—every episode becomes soil for her stories. “Using life experiences makes the lessons have an application that people can relate to,” she says. And for her,
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EC Magazines | Christmas Edition 2025
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