Andy Landis
Andy Landis is a producer, singer, author, speaker, actress, songwriter, award-winning playwright, and the founder of Shiny Penny Productions.
A sought-after inspirational speaker, Andy travels throughout the country, encouraging others with her own brand of humor and compassion. She passionately works with those who have often been left behind due to life's difficult circumstances. Having been through some very difficult situations herself as she shares in her testimony, Andy eagerly listens to each person who comes across her path – from a homeless person on the street, a prisoner, a suicidal teenager, a woman dealing with a broken marriage, to a person dealing with loss and grief – as she guides them to hope and the healing love of God.
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| Andy with F. Eugene Harmon, an Air Force veteran from Prescott, AZ, performing an excerpt from their play, 8-8-88, based on Harmon's experiences living with ALS. |
In 2001, Andy's short play, 8-8-88, took first place in the national Veterans Creative Arts Festival and, when adapted to film, was accepted to the New York Independent Film Festival. She has worked in Los Angeles with composer Tom Bahler, musical director for Quincy Jones, on the operetta Aesop, and produced the CD, I Will Rise, for opera singer Marcia Jones Thom, released in May 2003. Andy also produced and developed a two-CD set preserving the historic recordings of Tennessee's Poet Laureate Margaret Britton Vaughn. This endeavor has the support of the Tennessee Arts Commission. In 2005, Andy was one of 22 invited to participate in the Kennedy Center Intensive Playwriting Workshop in Washington, D.C. In 2007, Andy was one of 79 invited to participate in the 2nd Annual Great Plains Theatre Conference featuring Edward Albee and other theatre luminaries at Metropolitan Community College's Fort Omaha Campus.
She worked with Wardenclyffe Entertainment as music supervisor for the film Wooly Boys, starring Kris Kristofferson and Peter Fonda. She has developed the feature film, Riding the Blinds, for which she also was the music supervisor. She also is completing her play, For the Love of Thoreau.
Andy has co-written a musical, based on the life of Minnie Pearl, with Vaughn. In the fall of 2002, Andy released the CD Sea of Pink written specifically for women in the battle against breast cancer. Her critically acclaimed, award-winning second solo CD, Stranger, was released on Starsong Records in 1993. A prolific songwriter and former staff writer with Warner Chappell, she has published more than 300 songs and worked with artists such as Dolly Parton, Ricky Skaggs, Glen Campbell and the Fairfield Four. Andy has been nominated for a Grammy and two Dove awards.
Andy is a former model who for 12 years owned a successful modeling company in Los Angeles. A well-trained actor, she studied with Stella Adler, Sal Dano, and Tom Kibby, and has a long list of commercial, television and theatrical credits.
Her first book, She Stays, (read book review ) was published by Thomas Nelson in 1995. Currently, Andy is developing book concepts with her partner in Shiny Penny Productions, Susan O'Dooley Smith.
Particularly gifted at moving others to action, she is known for putting her hands to the wheel of a cause. She taught women in prison for more than seven years, developed a program to provide wigs for children in medical treatment, served as a national spokesperson for Compassion International, and continues to sponsor the Adopt-A-Highway program in rural Bedford County, Tennessee. Andy lives and runs cattle on her farm in Tennessee.
Andy's Speaking Topics
(Andy uses Scripture in her presentations and incorporates songs from her award-winning CD as well as recently penned compositions.)
The Testimony
Andy's testimony is especially powerful and moving. She tells us of her brush with fame while living in Los Angeles as a model, actress, and beauty queen. She gives us a glimpse of a life full of worldly success with quiet suffering of rape and sexual harassment. She tells of the victory found in the faith she discovered in a fast food restaurant in downtown L.A. and how God slowly and mercifully changed her life. This is testimony you should not miss. Full of laughter and tears, Andy will reintroduce you to God, His Son and the Holy Spirit in a way that you may not have heard for a long time.
You Are the Friend You Need
Learn to be the kind of friend you would want to have. Andy uses her own brand of humor and passion to give us pointers on being a courageous friend. Referring to her co-authored book She Stays, Andy tells us the true story of an amazing relationship with the wife of a country music star and how God used her to heal and save a high-profile marriage. Along the way, Andy will remind us that we can be a best friend to ourselves. After all, God lives within us so what better place to find Him than right in our own hearts? That is where to find Him when we need Him.
Bitter or Better - We Decide
Life is full of disappointments and failure but Andy has a way of looking at it all like a lesson in the fruits of the Spirit. Patience and virtue come from suffering and pain, or so she says. And the Word says it, too. Follow Andy in a journey of discovery and hope through the darker days of her life. Hear how God spoke to her and through her making her the women she is today: An overcomer, a warrior, and spirit-filled woman. Pain is tough and it can make us bitter or better. And our God gives us the freedom to choose.
| She Stays takes you behind the scenes of the dream-come-true romance of Bettye and Ricky Van Shelton to a world of personal struggle and turmoil that threatened to destroy their marriage and everything they held dear. It also brings you face-to-face with a woman's commitment to her marriage and the pain of forgiving that to many would be unforgivable - including infidelity and alcoholism - unless you knew that what you had was really worth keeping. Read more... |
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The Crossroads of Courage: Divine Sisters
There comes a time in everyone's life that is filled with question, where the test seems impossible, when we hit that brick wall. Andy has had several of these challenges when she had a bout with cancer, when she ended an abusive relationship, when she was raped. She calls these her "crossroads" and gives exciting possibilities found within those challenges offering us ways to overcome the shame, the blame and the pain. Andy conducts seminars for recovering survivors, which promote the experience of helping others and sharing the load. While sharing her own plan for recovery, Andy literally carries us with her to the goal - an honest and open heart.
Ride That Roller Coaster!
Jesus died so we can live! Living fully is a gift from God that Andy believes we must not miss. We all know that life is a journey but Andy reminds us to either get in the drivers seat or let God steer but for heavens' sake, don't be a back seat driver! She empowers us to trust God for the answers, to put the pedal to the metal and drive. After all, when we get to heaven God will want to know if we appreciated His gift of life and freedom. What will we say?
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Andy Landis singing Sea of Pink
at the Race for the Cure 2007, Nashville, TN (11/3/07) |
The Prison Privilege
Andy did volunteer work in the Tennessee Prison for Women for seven hears starting in January of 1991. In this presentation Andy shares her thoughts about life in prison and how we all create, at times, prisons of our own. She gives us tips on how to break free from the bondage of prison thinking and how to recognize the voice of the enemy. "That darn enemy wants us to think he is God", she says. Andy believes that we all need a little help in discerning the voice of God. Like Michelangelo who chipped away all that was not David, she helps us cut away all that is not God.
Living with a Loved One Who is Living with Depression
The number of those who are diagnosed with depression is staggering - it is in the millions. And that means there are millions more of us living with people who are depressed. How do we stay connected to someone who wants to disconnect? Andy gives hopeful, powerful and poignant ways to survive what can seem to be unbearable circumstances. Using stories from her own life, Andy shows how to thrive and find joy in living with someone who is depressed. As the numbers of those with depression mount, we can all learn a thing or two in this message of hope.
Plus: Andy can develop a presentation that is custom made for your event. Tell us your needs and, as long as you want your audience to be inspired and entertained, we know Andy will fit the bill.
A complete package for a weekend retreat —
filled with music, heartfelt sharing, fun & laughter!
Andy Landis & Susan O'Dooley Smith
Andy also teams with Susan to teach groups across the country with a balance of true-life illustrations and years of training.
Susan is currently working on her master's degree in Christian Apologetics. She teaches on the rationale for our faith, such as why we can believe that the Bible is believable, that the resurrection really happened, that God created all that exists, etc. while giving evidence —science, history, etc. — that even the most skeptical can accept when presented with it. She teaches with humor, while also sharing valuable and helpful information from her years as editor-in-chief of New Leaf Magazine, formerly Grief Magazine™, a quarterly publication for the bereaved.
Andy shares from her heart – often through laughter and other times with tears – from her life experiences as a victim of child molestation and later rape as a young adult, to being a cancer survivor. Their goal and mission is to leave each person they encounter with the love of Jesus as they help bring a message of hope and healing to broken lives.
A Mixed Bag of Fruit - with Plenty of Nuts Tossed In
Andy and Susan are whipping up a tangy fruit salad using each of the fruit of the Spirit listed in Galatians 5. Yum! Be prepared to taste and see that the Lord is good as they compare real, everyday fruit to spiritual fruit and, in the process, uncover the surprisingly tasty shared characteristics of each. Armed with plenty of true-life illustrations, they'll give you a tangible grasp of what the fruit of the spirit really are and how to nurture them in your life. (Audience participation is a hilarious must when these two cooks - or is it kooks concoct a life-size fruit salad!)
Good Grief
Don't let the title dissuade you. Most of us are grieving some kind of loss: death, divorce, job loss, poor health. The good news is that grief is a journey, and it can take you someplace you want to be. Andy and Susan are your tour guides on the rough road of grief, ministering to both your heart and your head with insight on what grief really is (it's so simple, you won't believe it), what effect it has on you (no, you're not going crazy; it's normal to feel that way), and how you can survive it (yes, you really can survive it). This is a presentation filled with hope and tears and humor, all leading to healing and life.
Some thoughts from Susan for dealing with someone who is suffering the loss of a loved one:
A card every week for many, many weeks...months. Short cards, sometimes funny, sometimes sweet. Sometimes I include a coupon for chocolate or chips, just for grins. Include SHORT notes: Thinking about you today...Reminding you that I care...Letting you know that it’s okay to cry today...etc. I know you already know this, but try real hard not to offer advice, not to make her feel better, and not to give her anything else to do. Remind her, however, when you feel it appropriate, that she has a future and a present, in fact.
Similarly, an e-mail every few days. I did this for a friend last fall for several months....just a sentence or two to remind her that even though I was not there, I was carrying her in my heart.
Your home phone number if you want to be the person who gets called in the middle of the night. If you do, offer yourself as a person to call when she can’t sleep and she feels like she has worn out everyone else.
Tidbits of information...it really helps to understand what one is feeling and experiencing in grief, but it is cruel to ask the grieving person to read a book or a web site about it. If you find things that will be helpful to her, email them to her in extremely short, easy-to-understand sentences. For example, “[Their Name], Thought it would help to know that it’s normal to feel like eating everything and eating nothing at all.” |
Am I My Sister's Keeper?
Built around the command to love your God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and to love your neighbor as yourself, this presentation takes a deeper look at what it means to use every piece of your being in your relationship with God. And it reveals the truth about loving your neighbor as yourself. With insight and those trademark stories from Andy and Susan, you may find that loving others might be easier, and more fun, than you think. Includes a startlingly practical and freeing application of 1 Corinthians 13.
Finding Joy in the Joyless
Do you dislike your job? Do you have fantasies of overthrowing your boss? Are you sick of being home and wish you had a workplace - other than the laundry room or minivan - to report to? Let Andy and Susan help you discover the secret of finding joy in the joyless task no matter where it is. Be warned, though, their methods of finding joy may spark uncontrollable laughter, knee-slapping and rib-holding. If the joy of the Lord is your strength, then you're about to get a whole lot stronger.
Faithful Friends
There's a reason Jesus sent His disciples out two-by-two: we need each other. And you may never find two needier friends than Andy and Susan. Join them as they openly explore their need for friendship, fear of friendship, the life-changing power of friendship, and the New Testament's undeniable call to love one another fully and faithfully, with no compromise. Real-life stories abound as they invite you to peek in on their friendship (the good, the bad, and the ugly) and how it has shaped and is shaping them.
