Art imitates life, then life imitates art, according to local author Janie Dempsey Watts in her winning story, “Art Lessons.”

Her first-person account of how her mother “Mama Anne” and her son Anthony shared special nature walks that inspired art lessons has been chosen for publication in the “Chicken Soup for the Soul” series’ newest edition, “Messages from Heaven.”

Watts, whose stories have been featured in several of the “Chicken Soup” books, said she was happy with the news.

“I feel so fortunate to have been published in ‘Chicken Soup’ again,” Watts said. “It’s a wonderful collection of stories and I feel very lucky.”

Watts has written for newspapers, magazines and television and authored five screenplays. Aside from several of the “Chicken Soup” books, her essays have been published in several magazines — Christian Science Monitor, Guideposts, and Georgia Backroads — and on boomerwomenspeak.com. She is also a regular contributing colum-nist for "Catoosa Life Magazine" published by the Daily Citizen News in Dalton.

Although the majority of her works have been non-fiction essay, she has written several fictional short pieces and recently finished her first novel, “Moon Over Taylor’s Ridge.” With dual settings in California and a fictional community south of Ringgold along Taylor’s Ridge, Watts describes the book as having “romance, mystery and lots of Cherokee history.” The book, being published by Little Creek Publishers, is scheduled to be released this fall. She is working on a second book, also set in the South.

Watts lives in Ringgold with her husband Stephen. They have two sons, Tony and Jack.

When she isn’t writing or caring for her two horses — her four-legged “babies” — she enjoys serving with friends and family at Woodstation United Methodist Church.