Our Team
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Karen Oeser
PUBLISHER, AUTHOR, SPEAKER, DANCER, ENTREPRENEUR, COACH
For nearly 25 years, international bestselling author and speaker, Karen Oeser managed multi-million-dollar portfolios. Now she’s using her skills to unlock the hidden wealth inside of every Christian woman: her love story with Jesus.
Everything changed for Karen when she courageously said “yes” to publishing her testimony in 2020. Friends who were familiar with her love story had been urging her to share it because they knew it would encourage, inspire, and sharpen women who were overcoming similar demons. Once she saw the positive impact her story in a multi-author book had on other women’s lives, she decided to start Heart Songs Publishing House with her writing coach, Judy Durham. The powerful multi-author format offers a broad array of stories of hope, faith, love, forgiveness, and peace, inviting readers to return to the book time and again as it resonates with their current circumstances.
Heart Songs Publishing House is not Karen’s first publishing company. In 2006, she responded to the tap on her heart to carry the publishing torch of her grandfather and launched Vivo Publications with three other partners. Not a believer at the time, she still knew that she wanted the fruit of her company to bring life into her reader's
homes and named it “Vivo Publications” (vivo means “to be alive” in Spanish). The company flourished at first but struggled to grow in the middle of the 2008 financial crisis. Even so, Karen can still see God’s hand in it and how He is already using some of the lessons and blessings from that venture to help our authors touch the hearts of even more women.
In addition to being the Publisher of Heart Songs, Karen is a Trauma Release Coach who helps professional Christian Women in their 40s and 50s determined to break free from the shackles of childhood trauma through her 12-week program called Awaken Your Heart. Her clients graduate full of joy and able to step into who God called them to be after resetting their nervous system using a faith-based yet scientifically supported approach.​ For more information, you can visit Summit to See's website at www.summit2see.com
In her capacity as a pastor and Licensed Minister of Dance, Karen works with families who have loved ones struggling with drug addiction, mental illness, and incarceration. In her free time, she loves being outdoors, traveling, and cheering on the Oregon Ducks.
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Judy Durham
WRITING COACH, AUTHOR, EDUCATOR
Judy Durham is a graduate of Furman University holding a BA in English and an MA in Language Arts and Reading. She is a fellow of the Clemson Writing Project which she credits as the beginning of her career as a professional writer and teacher.
“The Writing Project opened my eyes to see the other side of writing—as an author. Instead of just reading other people’s writing, now I could unlock my own writing potential. Today I have written over 100 poems, short stories, memoirs, 5 books, and a handbook for enhancing learning through writing subject matter original poems. As a writing coach, I have helped many first-time writers, ranging from 5 to 80 years of age, launch their own writing projects.”
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As an educator for 35+ years, she has taught Kindergarten through post-graduate classes. Judy founded a Christian school in 1998, serving as principal, instructional coach, and classroom teacher. The school opened its doors with 120 students and 29 faculty members which she recruited, interviewed, and hired to teach in grades K4 through 12. By 2001, the school had become fully accredited. She has written curriculum for language arts, social studies, math, and science. She is currently writing a Bible-based curriculum for Outreach Church Kids Ministry.
Judy’s professional goal is to unlock the Heart Songs© of each writer in order to develop an excellent story that will inspire every reader. Nothing gives her more joy than watching her clients open their published testimonies, seeing their own names under the byline, and realizing that lives will be touched by what they have written.
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