Living Lessons contributor Melanie Rigney spent more years than she cares to remember as an editor—at Writer’s Digest, Advertising Age, Thomson Financial Publishing, Macmillan Computer Publishing, and United Press International. But it took a return to her Catholic roots in 2005 to identify herself as a writer.

“I’d been away from God for thirty years, not so much because I didn’t believe in Him as because I couldn’t believe He loved me,” Melanie says. “His presence as I dealt with a move to a new city, a divorce, and repayment of nearly $110,000 in credit card debt helped convince me that I am lovable.”

One of the people who helped her find her way back to faith was Patricia Lorenz, who is the subject of Melanie’s entry in Living Lessons. “Pat’s been my best friend almost from the week I met her,” Melanie says. “We’re both writers, but we’re very different in many ways—she has kids and grandkids, I don’t; I have a demanding day job; she doesn’t. And yet, we learn so much from each other.”

In addition to Living Lessons, Melanie is a regular contributor to Living Faith, the Catholic devotional and to Your Daily Tripod (yourdailytripod.blogspot.com), a Catholic blog. With Anna LaNave, she is the co-author of When They Come Home: Ways to Welcome Returning Catholics (Twenty-third Publications), a book for Catholic parishes about how to help those who have been away from the Church but are making their first stumbling steps back

“I said no when I was first asked to do the book, feeling under qualified to tell parish leaders what to do, and suggested the publisher contact Anna, who facilitated the program for returning Catholics at my parish. Anna said she’d only write it if we did it together. It turned out to be a rich experience, working together, and best of all, we’re still friends!”

These days, in addition to her nonfiction writing, Melanie has caught the fiction bug. Her first novel, about a couple seeking to repair a marriage after twenty years of mistrust and betrayal, is with her agent for consideration. In the meantime, she’s working on a book about a woman who finds forgiveness and redemption decades after causing a deadly car accident.

“For me, the most humbling and satisfying aspect of writing is hearing that my work spoke to someone, frequently in a way I never intended,” Melanie says. One example is that her Living Faith devotionals led to a request for her to lead a retreat, her first ever, in April 2011 in Alabama.

To learn more about the writing side of Melanie’s life, please visit www.melanierigney.com; for the editing side, please visit www.editorforyou.com.