Alice is a beloved Scottish-born freelance writer, poet, and motivational speaker. She was educated as a registered nurse in Scotland, holds a B.S. degree in Health Sciences, and has worked mainly in the psychiatric field.
Alice has contributed to both the secular and religious press, has written and taught Bible studies and prize-winning poetry. Her first book, Little Women, Big God tells the story of the women’s ministry she founded and directed in the U.K.
Later, while living in Colorado, Alice authored Mothers Can’t Be Everywhere, But God Is (Cladach Publishing) and then co-authored, with Nancy Parker Brummett, Reconcilable Differences (Cook Communications Ministries).
She now lives in Arizona and enjoys visiting her grown children and her grandchildren. Widowed several years ago, she has remarried.
Alice’s witty, insightful and delightful poems are presented in her first volume of poetry, Pausing in the Passing Places and her forthcoming second volume of poetry, UNPAUSED Poems: Real, Raw, Relevant.
Alice’s forthcoming memoir, Daughter of the Isles, will release Oct. 1, 2023.
Alice Scott-Ferguson shares …
I grew up with Celtic roots, in the farthest reaches of the United Kingdom, the Shetland Islands, where the sun never sets in summer and the aurora borealis dances in the long, dark winter skies. Our table conversations were loud, lively and searching; the meaning of life, legend and the ways of nature were all up for examination then woven with wonder into the tapestry of a strong faith, which became the resting place for all our speculation. In that setting I began to express who I was, filling pages of paper with my stories.
The title “Passing Places” is inspired by the narrow one-lane roads that weave through the moors and the mountains of my native land. As drivers have to pull off the road to let oncoming traffic pass, so in life we often need to do so figuratively; to pause, to reflect, to assess and to tuck into a place of safety from the dangers, dreads and distractions.
It is my hope that you will find many of my poems echo in your heart; that you will identify with their pathos and pain, and know you are not alone. I hope you will see the humor in the common place and the sacred in everything. My highest hope is that I may have contributed something to interpreting the enigmas and the wonders of this life.
Have you ever winced and wriggled in your pew wishing Mother’s Day sermons weren’t so saccharine, only to chide yourself for such sacrilegious thoughts? As you leave with your red carnation and your kids, have you ever wondered if anyone notices that you are crumbling under a yoke of unattainable perfection and giving way under a burden of guilt? Does anyone notice that you as a woman are a person in your own right?
My purpose in writing MOTHERS CAN’T BE EVERYWHERE, BUT GOD IS is to assure mothers that they are not alone with such questions, doubt, and fears.
In addition to writing from my years of experience as a mother and grandmother, I rely on the Word of God to substantiate my claims and convictions. May the words of this book cause your heart to sing a new song of hope when you realize that, contrary to the old adage that “God couldn’t be everywhere so He made mothers,” the truth is that you can’t be everywhere for your kids—but God is.