Amanda Carpenter

When Amanda Carpenter first began attending college, her softball scholarship made school abnormally affordable for the Ball State University attendee.

But after she blew out her shoulder and lost her scholarship, Carpenter came eye-to-eye with the real cost of her education.

“I got really mad about it and started trying to research and find out ‘why does this cost so much for me?’ I didn’t qualify for anything,” she said.

Carpenter had read Ayn Rand before, but had never heard of conservative heroes like Ann Coulter until a friend invited her to a blogging workshop held by The Leadership Institute.

After attending the workshop, Carpenter began a blog in which she wrote about the cost of higher education and other issues on her campus. The backlash at her university was severe. Some readers even claimed she was a GOP plant.

“I didn’t think I was doing anything that rebellious, but apparently I was,” she recalled.

Carpenter’s blog eventually got the attention of Human Events, where an internship turned into a job. She went on to work for Townhall.com and The Washington Times before leaving the field of journalism to work for Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) as his speechwriter and senior communications advisor in 2010.

It’s not difficult to become a writer, the former journalist says, but “you have to expect that people aren’t going to read you for six to ten months.”

To would be journalists, Carpenter points out that, “ If you want to be a writer, you have to write. As soon as you start writing you are a journalist.”