Avery E. Hitch was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, on August 7^th, 1985. Born into a Christian home with two older siblings, Avery was the youngest in the family until 1988, when her little brother was born. In the next ten years, three more boys and a girl joined the Hitch family, making Avery the third oldest of eight children.

Moving to Colorado when Avery was four, the family lived in the mountains until returning to Nebraska four years later. They finally realized their dream of owning an acreage when they bought fifteen acres outside the small, rural town of Martell, Nebraska, in 1996. Located fifteen miles southwest of Lincoln, the family has lived in the four bedroom house ever since.

In 1998, God called the Hitch family into public ministry. They formed the gospel bluegrass music ministry called Simple Grace. Singing locally for two years, Avery and her family learned multiple instruments including guitar, fiddle, banjo, mandolin, dobro, piano, harmonica and bass guitar. In 2000, the Hitch family went into ministry full-time and began traveling the country an excess of 50,000 miles per year, giving over 150 concerts annually. Simple Grace has now been in existence for eight years, and Avery contributes to the ministry by playing guitar, fiddle and cello, and singing. She also does much of the bookkeeping and office work. To learn more about the ministry and family, visit their website at www.simplegrace.org.

While at home in Nebraska, Avery enjoys working with horses. She and her siblings own nine horses, and enjoy trail riding on the farm acres around their home, as well as some breeding. Avery has a five-year-old black and white paint mare named Sugar, and she is part owner of a foundation quarter horse broodmare named Dottie.

Along with horses, Avery also enjoys gardening and spending time with her friends. Having a traveling spirit raised into her, one of her favorite things to do is travel to visit friends she’s made across the country.

Avery was home schooled and began writing short stories and poems in grade school. She developed a passion for her characters and stories that led her to completing and publishing her first full-length fiction manuscript, Be Ye Thankful, when she was fifteen. Followed shortly by the sequel, Journey to the Cross¸ this series became nationally read as it was sold from coast-to-coast as Avery traveled in the ministry.  Her enthusiasm for writing motivated her to enroll in correspondence writing school through the Christian Writer’s Guild two months before she graduated from high school. She completed two years of the What’s Your Story? course and graduated as an Apprentice.

Almost immediately after Journey to the Cross was released, Avery began formulating and writing the story of an orphan named Ashley in the book A Penny Parcel. The manuscript was completed two and half years later, and Avery had done her final edit when God began walking her through a journey of spiritual freedom. Letting the story of A Penny Parcel rest for several months, Avery eventually returned to it and re-wrote much of the book reflecting her own experience of being freed from lies and embracing truth. Working intensely on this manuscript through seven more edits, Avery often wrote well into the night, and found her characters coming to life as she related to them through real-life issues. To read more about Avery’s testimony, visit the testimony page.

Writing is a passion for Avery, but much more than her love for creating well-written, entertaining books is her desire to honor Christ by centering her writing on His gospel message and His tireless pursuit of His children.