Leadership Team and Staff
Managing Director
Denise Rumble is a freelance writer whose article, "Surviving with a Woman of a Certain Age," can be read in the anthology A Second Cup of Hot Apple Cider. Over the years, her column, "Just Thinking," has appeared in five publications. She also has written articles, book reviews, sports write-ups, as well as an education column when she was a Board of Education trustee. Now that her children are grown, Denise is able to devote more time to her writing and speaking. Before accepting this position with The Word Guild, Denise operated her own bookkeeping business for 11 years. Denise has a blog called Just a Word where she writes as Managing Director of The Word Guild, as well as personal blog, Midlife Odyssey, and website.
Awards Administrator
Mary Ann Benjamins, a graduate of Redeemer University College and an elementary school supply teacher, writes from her home base in Brantford, Ontario. Born and raised in Pembroke, in the heart of the Ottawa Valley, Mary Ann has lived all over Ontario and the United States. She is a member of The Word Guild and her short story, “In His Hands,” appears in A Second Cup of Hot Apple Cider. She has a passion for Christian fiction and with five kids slowly leaving the nest Mary Ann has more time to devote to her writing. You can find her weekly musings at, My Father’s Daughter, her personal blog.
Awards Gala Administrator
Trish Heidebrecht is lost without a book!
As well as being an avid reader, Trish has, over the past 25 years, sold books, written books and published other people’s books. To help fulfill The Word Guild’s mandate of encouraging and celebrating Canadian Christian writers is a dream come true.
Trish has managed the retail operations for several Canadian denominations and currently scouts for authors and editors for the Kerygma Program of Adult Bible Studies.
A perfect day is spent reading to her grandchildren Lilly and Logan on the porch with “Pawpaw” John and wonder dog Flash for company.
Administrative Assistant
Judy Bingley has been a member of The Word Guild since February, 2003. She quickly joined The Prayer Team, and in 2005 served as one of the coordinators of the Write! Canada conference. Bingley Distributors sponsored the song lyrics category of The Canadian Christian Writing Awards for three years.
Judy has over thirty years of business and management experience. Her expertise includes tracking products from design to manufacture to final delivery to retail stores, coordinating seminars for owners/managers and salespeople, organizing annual trade shows and technical writing for product catalogues.
Prayer Team Coordinator
Janet Sketchley is a Canadian writer whose passion is fiction (Christian women’s suspense). Her unpublished novel, Praying for the Enemy, was short-listed for the 2008 Best New Canadian Christian Author Award. Janet also writes weekly book reviews and devotionals at her blog, God With Us: Finding Joy, and a quarterly fiction column in FellowScript. Janet has been the Prayer Team Lead for The Word Guild for a number of years.
Communications Team Lead
Neil Bramble, a professional member, served as editor of The Canadian Gideon for the past 17 years. Neil comes from a background of teaching—high school English and history—having spent 16 years in that profession. He was a staff member of The Gideons from 1981 until his retirement in December 2008. A writer and speaker, Neil is also an Alpha advisor and leads the Alpha course in his church in Guelph, ON. “I am impressed with the spiritual depth and godly vision of The Word Guild and enthusiastically support its mission,” he says. “Canadians need to hear the message God has for them and we as Christian writers have a responsibility to communicate it. I want to be part of that.”
