With more than nineteen million books in print, Beverly Lewis is the #1 bestselling author of Amish fiction. Her novel, The Shunning, launched a new fiction genre in 1997. Since then, her many novels have been published in twelve languages and have regularly appeared on numerous bestseller lists, including the New York Times and USA Today.

Beverly was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and as a young girl was drawn to the Amish residing near her rural home. As she grew, she heard the heartbreaking story of her maternal grandmother, Ada, who was excommunicated from her Old Order Mennonite home as a teen. Ultimately, Ada was shunned from her church community when she married a Bible college student instead of a Mennonite farmer. “The Shunning is loosely based on my grandmother’s experiences,” recalls Beverly.

At the age of four, Beverly began taking piano lessons. Music and books soon became her daily passions. She also created her own little five-finger piano melodies, as well as penned stories and poems, tucking them away in the bottom drawer of her dresser for safekeeping. At eleven, she wrote her first book in pencil on yellow-lined paper. "She Shall Have Music" was an outgrowth of her desire to follow God’s ways and her love for the piano. Beverly says, “Thankfully, my mother inadvertently discovered my writings and quickly became my greatest encourager . . . and dearest prayer partner.”

As a college student, Beverly was torn between pursuing a major in music or journalism. After much soul-searching and prayer, she chose Music Education with an emphasis in piano performance, also taking English and creative-writing classes in the hope of a dual career of music instruction and writing. Upon graduation from Evangel University, she accepted a music-teaching position at Talbott Elementary School near Colorado Springs, Colorado, and continued to write just as a hobby.

Eventually, that hobby transformed into a career as an author as Beverly’s first book for preteen girls, Best Friend, Worst Enemy, marked the beginning of a fourteen-book series entitled Holly’s Heart. All the while, Beverly was also publishing stories and articles for magazines. Then she had an idea for a book “just for my family,” she recalls. The end result became her first novel for adults, The Shunning, which has sold more than a million copies. It was also made into a television movie initially for the Lifetime Movie Network, as well as a popular musical for regional theaters in Pennsylvania and Ohio.

When Beverly isn’t writing, she reads classic literature and biographies of famous and not-so-famous people. She also plays Mozart piano sonatas, classically arranged hymns, and four-hand duets with her husband, David, also her co-writer for two novels. Hiking in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains is another activity that brings Beverly joy—a way to unwind from deadlines, as is spending time with her grown children and granddaughter, making family scrapbooks, and keeping in touch with her devoted readers on Facebook.