Montana Author Transforms a Lifelong Passion for Storytelling into an Award-Winning Independent Publishing Career

Women's Journal Contributor

July 30, 2026

By: Farzana Bashir

From Rancher and Dental Assistant to Celebrated Novelist-Publisher, Diane Merrill Wigginton Proves the Richest Chapters of Life Can Start Later Than Expected.

Some careers follow a straight line, but Diane Merrill Wigginton’s did not, and that is exactly what makes her story worth telling.

Diane’s love of storytelling took root in childhood as she grew up between Riverside and the Mira Mesa community of San Diego, spending her summers on her grandparents’ ranch in Idaho. Before she could focus on writing, Diane married David, worked as a dental assistant, and raised six children in a blended family. Their family included children from previous relationships as well as children they had together. The family lived on a rural ranch in Herald, California. Writing remained a dream, postponed but never abandoned.

It wasn’t until her 50s that Diane finally gave herself permission to pursue it. That single decision reshaped the rest of her life.

Building More Than a Bibliography

What sets Diane apart is not just that she writes, but what she has built around her writing. Through her own company, Jeweled Dagger Publishing, she has grown from debut novelist to author-publisher, overseeing her own catalog across genres as varied as historical romance, young adult fiction, psychological thrillers, and children’s literature.

Diane’s catalog spans seven titles across five genres. Her Jeweled Dagger Series, which includes Angelina’s Secret, Isabella’s Heart, and Olivia’s Promise, blends historical romance, suspense, psychic abilities, and family legacy. Angelina’s Secret launched her career and earned the 2017 Benjamin Franklin Digital Award and the Most Inspiring Author Award.

Her young adult historical novel, Lara’s Story, follows an Irish girl rebuilding her life in Philadelphia and won 1st Place Historical Fiction and the 2019 TCK Readers’ Choice Grand Prize. A Compromising Position, a contemporary romantic-suspense novel, became Diane’s most decorated book, earning ten literary awards.

She later expanded into children’s literature with The Secret of One-Eyed Cogburn: The Dreaded Pirate Captain, also published in Spanish, which received first-place honors from Literary Titan and The BookFest in 2024. Her newest release, The Magician Killer, is a psychological thriller about an FBI profiler investigating disappearances in Alaska connected to her past.

Across her career, Diane has earned numerous literary awards, including recognition from the Benjamin Franklin Awards, Readers’ Favorite, BookFest, the Independent Author Network, and the Global Book Awards, where she was named Visionary Author and Publisher of the Year.

A New Milestone

This year marks another milestone in that ongoing story. Diane has joined twenty other entrepreneurs, speakers, and thought leaders as a contributing author to Cracking the Rich Code, Volume 20, a collaborative book featuring a foreword by Kevin Harrington of Shark Tank and an endorsement from Tony Robbins.

Her chapter doesn’t read like a typical success story. It’s a personal account of what it actually took to bet on a postponed dream in midlife, the discipline, the vulnerability, and the decision to treat writing as a present commitment rather than a someday plan. For Diane, the lesson isn’t that success arrived easily; it’s that it arrived because she finally started, not because the timing was ever perfect.

It’s a message she’s said resonates well beyond publishing for entrepreneurs waiting for the right conditions, professionals weighing a pivot, or parents who’ve set their own ambitions aside. Her journey makes the case that no chapter of life is wasted; experience becomes the advantage, not the obstacle.

A Life That Reflects the Message

After retiring from her day job in 2017, Diane and David moved to Kalispell, Montana, near Glacier National Park, where she now writes full-time, hikes through the surrounding wilderness, and enjoys life as a grandmother of twelve. For Diane, prosperity has never been solely about productivity or accolades. It is the fulfillment of building something from a dream that almost never had the chance to exist.