A Passion for Writing...

Jonna has been a writer since her teenage years at Westside Junior High and Frayser High School in Memphis, Tennessee. She began her first novel while attending the University of Memphis. While living in Memphis, Jonna also wrote motivational articles for Positive Living Magazine and motivational radio scripts for Art Linkletter’s The ART of Positive Thinking. Positive thinking, to Jonna, is an extension of her Christian faith, which has sustained her all her life. "As he thinketh in his heart, so is he." Proverbs 23:7.

In 1992, Jonna and her husband, Bill Rathbun, a FedEx pilot, moved to Denver and made it their home. They now live in a 'rural village' on the northern edge of the Palmer Divide.

• 2011:
    -  Publication of Young Adult mystery/time travel novel, Shiloh and the Cave. 
    -  TV interview: Memphis's Live at 9.  
    -  Novels highlighted in July edition of Southern Writers Magazine.
    -  Shared the cover--in small part--of the September issue of Southern Writers
      Magazine with the successful author, Andy Andrews, with an extensive author
       interview inside.
    -  Shiloh and the Cave reviewed on the Clean Teen Reads website.
    -  Guest blogger on for the Suite T section of  Southern Writers Magazine.
       Blog entitled "Procrastination Can Be an Author's Friend."
   

• 2010: Publication of fourth mystery novel, Finding Alan, the sequel to The Desk. Also, publication of a revised second edition of The Desk.
   

• 2009: Publication of third novel, The Other Side of Time, a semi-finalist in the Amazon.com Breakthrough Novel Award contest.
   

• 2008: Publication of bi-weekly column in YourHub.com entitled "Angel Encounters."
   

• 2006: TV Interviews: Denver's Colorado & Company and Memphis's Live at 9. Publication of "The Trunk" in Prairie Times magazine.
   

• 2005: Publication of second mystery novel, New Pictures of an Old Murder, a Highlands Ranch Mystery  Review of novel in Colorado Country Living Magazine in its November 2009 issue.
   

• 2004: Publication of "The Clean Smell of Dirt" in the May issue of Southern Scribe e-magazine in the Porch Tales section (southernscribe.com). 
   

• 2003: Completion of second mystery novel, New Pictures of an Old Murder, a Highlands Ranch Mystery, which won the Adult Fiction Manuscript Award at the DreamMaker Workshop.
   

• 2002: Publication of first mystery novel, The Desk, while completing an English degree at Regis University in Denver. Graduated summa cum laude. Wrote feature articles for Buy Colorado newspaper.
   

• 1995: First place in the Highlands Ranch Register/Littleton Independent newspapers' short story competition for "Sabrina."