Guts and grace

After last week's announcement that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin would pen a memoir to set the record straight about her personal and political life, HarperCollins revealed Thursday that WORLD Magazine Features Editor Lynn Vincent has been signed on as Palin's collaborator.

The book, not yet titled, will be co-published by HarperCollins imprint Harper and HarperCollins-owned Zondervan and is scheduled for release in the spring of 2010.

During her 10 years as a senior writer and features editor for WORLD, Vincent has covered politics, culture, and hot-button social issues such as abortion for the biweekly news magazine. She has also specialized in narrative journalism.

"Lynn has been WORLD's best writer of action stories ranging from shots fired in a Texas church to raging fires on California hillsides," said WORLD Editor in Chief Marvin Olasky. "She combines guts and grace, as does Sarah Palin, so the book should be outstanding."

Vincent, 46, has collaborated on four previous memoirs. Her most popular collaboration, Same Kind of Different As Me (Thomas Nelson, 2006), tells the remarkable story of Ron Hall, a wealthy white art dealer, and Denver Moore, an illiterate homeless black man, as their lives converge unexpectedly. The book has sold nearly half a million copies and has stayed on the New York Times best-seller list for more than 59 consecutive weeks, including 29 weeks at No. 15 or above. Through speaking engagements by Hall and Moore, the book has helped raise more than $30 million for homeless shelters nationwide.

"Having worked for more than a decade with Lynn Vincent in what is often a man's world, I know she brings a rare kind of strong-mindedness and tender-heartedness to every assignment," said WORLD Editor Mindy Belz. "Lynn is a tenacious reporter and an exacting writer-and I'm not sure when she sleeps."

While Vincent works with Palin on her memoir, she will take a leave of absence from her writing for WORLD and its online counterparts, WORLDmag.com and WorldMagBlog.