About the Author, Wesley Whisenhunt

Wes had a calling to write since he was eight years old. His childhood memories of his father’s death, his mother’s grief and the struggles of his grandparents provide Wes with a voice that is not taught in a classroom and not heard in lecture halls. This native of Central Texas provides a homespun childlike view of the past that provides teachable moments for today. He brings a sense of humor that beams down as warm as a prairie sun while moving you through thought provoking stories as deep as your favorite swimming hole.

More About Me

Before I was 5, I mimicked the adults after church. I would exit the building stand at the door and shake hands with the adults as they exited the building. They would shake hands and laugh and tell my parents that I would grow up to be a preacher or a politician. I would reply, “No, I won’t be either. I’ll be something else.”

When I was 8, I wanted to be a professional baseball player. I prayed to God and begged him, asking if I would be one. I thought I heard a still small voice say, “You’ll write about yourself, and others will write about you.” At the time, I took that as a yes. In my little kid’s mind, I could imagine myself working with sports reporters on a story about my baseball prowess.

When I was 9, my father was killed in a farm tractor accident. The hole that left cannot be described, nor the toll and impact of the grief that I witnessed in my mother. A bomb went off that sent shockwaves through my life from then until now. Interestingly, most of the time, I don’t even notice the damage.

When I was in High School in American History class, the teacher went over the New Deal. I began to gasp for air and look around the room. Everyone looked at me, including the teacher. I looked at all the expressionless faces and wondered why I was the only one that was incredulous. The teacher asked me what was wrong. I asked, “How did he (FDR) get away with that?!” I have thought back on that incident many times and wondered why I knew that the New Deal was wrong. I couldn’t explain why it was wrong. No one had ever told me it was wrong. I just instinctively believed it was wrong.

When I was twenty-two, I moved away from home. A girl I was crazy about dumped me. I didn’t want people in my hometown to see me cry, so I ran. I decided to answer my calling to write, and I took up a hobby of writing song lyrics and children’s stories. I mostly wrote sad pop/country ballads until God told me to stop, “That is not what I want you to write.”

When I was forty-nine while going through some rough times with family issues, I began writing my memoir of growing up in Coryell County in the Sixties.

When I was sixty, I set out to make sense of the odyssey that was my life. I began writing Quintessential Sinner Saint.

Now at sixty-two, I am trying to publish Quintessential Sinner Saint and blogging and researching my next book Quintessential Citizen.

Those Christians on the porch of the church when I was five would not be surprised that I write about political subjects and topics from the Bible. I guess I’m following the still small voice when I was eight that said I would write about myself. It is not what I wanted to do, but something I must do. There is something that eats inside of me. It is not a glamorous task; it is a down-right lonely job. Yet it is the sand of loneliness that makes the pearl. A pearl that hopefully helps generations to come.

Books by Wesley Whisenhunt

Quintessential Redneck &

Quintessential Sinner Saint