Bridging the gap with Highbridge Stories

I was blessed to be allowed to get to know a fellow author by the name of Boyana Atwood, publishing as Highbridge Stories. Her fun and engaging faith based books are sure to please!

Boyana is from Europe, born in Serbia and raised in Switzerland. She originally studied law and worked as an Investment Banking Associate before travelling to Texas. In Texas, she attended Christ for the Nations Bible School where she met her husband. 

As a couple, they journeyed to Mozambique where they were involved in missionary work before deciding to move back to the states to start their family. Currently living in Anchorage, Alaska, they have two children.

As with most of us, Covid changed how Boyana's world worked.  While she had been doing some project management, Covid meant she became a full time stay at home mother. She began publishing guided journals on the side.

This time with her kids lead her to the creative work of writing her own children's stories and last year she began to illustrate books as well. This year she plans to illustrate one of her own stories which is still a work in progress.

Maya's Big Feelings was the first book she wrote. It is a fun short story about a girl discovering her feelings as they take her on a roller coaster ride of emotions. With a little help, she learns not to let her feelings take over.

​She has also been busy creating the following:​

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Maya's Big Adventure, Pray With Me (A Book of Prayers for Small Children), and Exploring Our Space Neighborhood all come from the wonderful writing of Boyana Atwood. 

For the Maya books, Boyana worked with illustrator Anastasiya Provozina and says she was wonderful to work with. Anastasiya went above and beyond what Boyana asked of her and was very easy to communicate with. Boyana would love to work with her on more books in the Maya​ series.

Boyana added that she is now exploring the illustrator path herself now and is using an iPad and ProCreate software to create her drawings.

I asked her what is next and she said "On March 5th is the office release date of The Creator's Kids, a book I was able to illustrate for the amazing Nicole Helm."

Boyana also mentioned she is finalizing the illustration of another book for a similarly amazing author, and is exploring stories of her own that she wants to write. As with most of my author friends, Boyana has several ideas she is working on advancing.

Boyana's Christian faith is evident  in each page of her books. She has so far only received positive feedback , although she admits to marketing primarily to people with similar views and hasn't gone mainstream with her marketing. I encourage her to do so, as the books are well written and have a wonderful message to share.

I asked Boyana to share some fun facts about her and this is what she came up with:

• Boyana loves most vegetables, but admits that green beans and asparagus make her gag.
• When she lived in Mozambique, Boyana became accustomed to spiders as they were everywhere. She admits that now that she's in Alaska, where most of the year the bugs are dormant, she gets all spooked when she sees a spider or other bug.
• Boyana was fortunate to travel the world in her twenties and has lived on 5 different continents for at least one month each. She loves hot climates and wants to move somewhere warmer in the future.
• If she had to choose between sweet and savoury foods, Boyana says she will always choose delicious sweetness.
• Growing up, Boyana wanted to be a teacher and fashion designer. She would draw fun and interesting clothes in her free time.

For more on Boyana, please check out the contact details card below! I have also included some images from her title Frog and His Pearl.​