Deirdra Eden Coppel

- Deirdra Eden Coppel -

Starting a New Renaissance of HOPE

Deirdra has been writing stories, poems and lyrics from the age of four.
As a child, she was also fascinated with mythology and historical customs and sports.
She has studied weaponry and frequently
attends and competes in sword fighting tournaments.

Combining her love of literature, theology, mythology and history,
her historical fantasy stories have captivated audiences of all ages.
Readers have applauded the books’ high values, morals and admirable characters.

Deirdra loves sharing her talents and
will continue to create products that will inspire others.

Deirdra (The Human Side)

I am just an ordinary woman, but I believe I can do extraordinary things.

My life has been one that is full of trials and growing experiences.

I have been blessed with many good friends and lots of love which far outweighs the heartache in my life.

My typical day starts out having the blankets pulled off me. I pull them back over my head before the tug of war begins. We both pull at the blankets for about twenty minutes before I start getting stepped on. Then there is two of them jumping on my bed and meowing “We’re hungry”. So I get up and feed my feline children who don’t understand that Daylight Savings Time means that I get to sleep an extra hour. I look at my kitchen and decide wither of not I should do the dishes that are piling up or work on writing and illustrating another book. I check my email and mail people their newly purchased e-books. (Thank you for supporting me in my writing habit.)

Just as I sit down to write another hungry creature comes strolling up the stairs into my office. So I feed my husband and then I sit down to write. Sometimes I hear my husband down in the kitchen doing dishes, I love that sound. It is one of the many ways he supports me in my mission in life. I start writing and before I know it my cats and honey are crying for dinner. At this point depending on if I need a break or if I am stuck I will either fix dinner or tell them that they will need to fend for themselves tonight. I do mix it up and have other things going on besides writing, I just finished school and I will be appraising real estate for a local company. I teach private art lessons, and sew custom costumes like a mad woman. For exercise, entertainment and to have somewhat of a social life I like to dress up in costumes and crash, SCA, Belegarth and Amtgard events or practices.

I am also a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (or Mormon, as we are commonly called—for more info on what that means, see www.mormon.org ). My religion plays a big part in the moral integrity of my work and gives me a unique perspective of who I am. And yes, I have been asked more than once, "What's a nice Mormon girl like you doing with swords?"

How Chris and I met (my side of the story)

I was at a friend’s house telling stories about knights and dragons, you know the typical. Then in walks Chris, he was wearing this t-shirt that said, “This is what cool looks like”. I thought he was so arrogant for wearing such a thing. I had to tell myself that I shouldn’t judge people by what they wore, he probably though I was arrogant because I was wearing a roman goddess outfit (just something I had laying around the house and had decided to wear that day). Chris introduced himself by coming up to me and bowing on one knee and kissing my hand. At first I thought he was making fun of me because he had this huge grin plastered all over his face. So my first impression of him wasn’t the best. As I continued to tell stories he seemed to be genuinely interested in what I was saying and I had a hard time figuring him out. I thought I might try and scare him away by telling him about my sword collection and my two feline children and all the other weird things about me. He was fascinated. I invited him to come back with me to my tree house and we talked for a long time. I decided to try and shock him by throwing him into a subculture with in our own culture. I had heard that some Vikings were going to be storming a castle the following morning. I invited him to come and watch with me. So like little kids we hid in the bushes while watching the Viking invade. He had never seen anything like it. Seeing an invasion in real life is much better than seeing it on T.V. He was still willing to date me so I asked him if he wanted to fight the follow week in a battle I was going to be participating in. He didn’t know any better so he said yes. I had one week to train him and get him battle ready. It turned out pretty good because we got to spend a lot of time hitting on each other (double meaning). The next week we went to battle. As we were in camp getting our weapons ready some of the men approached Chris and offered to let him borrow some armor. Chris, not knowing any better said, “No that’s okay, I’ll be fine.” So these guys walked off thinking, “Wow this guy is tough.” I need to add a note in here, these battle reenactments are pretty safe. There has only been three people who have ever died doing these reenactments. When the battle began I was out in the field with the archers shooting at the guys up in the towers. I was keeping a close eye on Chris, if anyone came up behind him I was going to shoot them. When I looked over at him I saw him behind the battering ram with a big smile on his face and I thought, “Wow that’s the kind of guy I want to marry.”

In 2006 we got married in the St. George LDS temple, and yes, we did cut the cake with a sword.

All art designs, and graphics on this site are © copyright Deirdra Eden Coppel
Please email guidedhope@gmail.com for any requests
or "borrowing" or any use of any images or text.