Shelbi earned her Bachelor of Arts in English, Writing in May of 2017 from Dordt College, at the wise old age of 44. She holds an MFA in Creative Nonfiction with a Teaching Concentration from Augsburg University in Minneapolis. Before her return to school and since, she’s enjoyed writing about finding the fingerprints of God in the ordinary and paying and calling attention to the beauty that’s all around in “flyover country.” Her (perhaps yet-to-be-published?) MFA thesis manuscript is You Are Here, a memoir in a collection of essays on finding home and finding an identity in the midst of multiple moves and transitions.
She writes and lives with her family, her grown-up missionary kid/pastor husband, two daughters in college, and a son in rural South Dakota. In addition to writing, she’s also taught composition and literature both in the classroom and online at her undergrad alma mater, Dordt University in the tiny town of Sioux Center, Iowa.
Her work has been published in Pro Rege, Dordt University’s faculty publication; the online journals inallthings.org and fathommag.com; Perspectives/Reformed Journal; The Banner; and the Dordt University Voice.