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Tonya L. Matthews (Hudnall)
Tonya Matthews grew up on a family farm in Riverside, Kentucky, where she enjoyed playing in the rain, jumping in piles of leaves, and making homemade Kool-Aid® popsicles. Vacations were rare, and creative means of entertainment thrived. Encouraged by her mother, a cardboard box wasn't just a box—it might become a Barbie dream house, a winding tunnel maze, or a neighborhood snack stand.
Matthews shares that she “wasn’t a great match for farm life,” as her father recognized early on that hoeing tobacco and running hogs weren't in her skill set. "I'd get sick in the tobacco patch from the heat, and the hogs would run right past me while I was holding a board twice my size trying to block them. It's a good thing I had college in mind."
After graduating from Western Kentucky University, marrying Todd Matthews, and starting a career with the Bowling Green Area Chamber of Commerce, Matthews spent the next two decades supporting the local business community.
In 2018, she chose family over career as their teen daughters became the priority. This also gave her the chance to pick up a book she'd started writing years earlier.
"I began writing as a healthy escape during difficult times, running my emotions through storylines in search of the hope I needed. And for this reason, I continue to write," she said.
In 2019, Treasure atop the Mountain was published, the first novel in what turned out to be a series. Roxie Applesauce followed in 2021, with a third novel, Get Will, currently in the works. Ironically, inspired by a scene in Roxie Applesauce, she began writing children's books and has published more than a dozen to date.
Matthews recently earned First Place in the Audiobook category at the 2026 Selah Awards, presented during the 50th annual Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers Conference in North Carolina. The conference is widely recognized as one of the nation's largest premier gatherings for Christian writers, attracting authors, editors, agents, publishers, and industry professionals from across the country.
For Matthews, the recognition is both humbling and deeply personal.
"This is all so beyond me,” she said.
Her novels continue to resonate with readers who appreciate emotionally rich stories of faith, family, forgiveness, resilience, and God's faithfulness through life's challenges. “I've said these books are for women who've laughed, cried, been on their knees, and gotten back up. The amazing women I've met along this God-given journey have been the best part."
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