From the staff of the Senate Banking Committee to the bestseller shelf, Shaunti Reidinger Feldhahn '89 has had quite the varied career. She currently writes the conservative half of a syndicated debate column and is working on a new book. It's a long way from her days as an analyst on Wall Street -- and she never expected to end up where she is.

"I never set out to be a columnist," she says.

The job found her when a good friend and exiting columnist for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution gave Feldhahn's name as a possible replacement. The gig morphed into a point-counterpoint style debate between Feldhahn and Diane Glass. Each week one writes on a topic and the other writes a rebuttal. They look for topics that have some resonance with current events and make sure the issue is one the two disagree on -- something that doesn't always happen.

Feldhahn, who bills herself as a "conservative Christian columnist" in opposition to Glass' "liberal feminist" billing, says her personal relationship with Glass is actually a lot more amiable than column readers would expect, although she admits that "the claws come out in print."

Though the column, "Woman to Woman," was originally intended for a female audience, things have turned out differently. The authors enjoy a diverse readership, but still try to bring topics back to issues relevant to women. What's important, Feldhahn believes, is not that the topics are meant for women, but that they are written by women.

"A woman's point of view has really been lacking in these areas," says Feldhahn.

Feldhahn has chosen to explore topics relevant to women in other ways. In 2004 she published For Women Only: What You Need to Know About the Inner Lives of Men. According to Feldhahn, the book helps women better understand their husbands.

"Most women's primary need is to feel that our husband loves us," she notes, "but for men it is more important that their wives respect them."

The idea for the book came when Feldhahn was struggling to develop a male character in one of her novels. To help, she started asking her male friends what was going on inside their heads.

"Next thing you know I was going up to the guy behind the counter in Starbucks, asking, 'What would you be doing in this situation?'" she recalls.

For Women Only achieved so much success that she is now exploring the other end of the spectrum in For Men Only: What You Need to Know About the Inner Lives of Women, co-authored by her husband, Jeff. She's found writing about her own sex for a male audience to be more challenging than doing it the other way around.

However, fiction-writing presents her biggest professional challenges. In her novel The Veritas Conflict, she explores the struggle of a Christian college student in a secular academic environment. The novel takes place at Harvard, where Feldhahn earned her master's in public policy and says she encountered similar obstacles as those of her novel's protagonist. It was during her senior year at William and Mary that she had a "faith awakening" and became the devout Christian she is today.

Feldhahn cites her faith and her family as the most important things in her life, but admits that it is sometimes difficult to balance those with her career.

"I try hard to pick up the kids from school and be a mom putting them first, but I am at a very active period in my career," she explains. To help her maintain the balance she seeks, she enlists the help of her husband, whom she calls a "Mr. Mom." Both Feldhahn and her husband work from home to give them more time to spend with their two children.

While she's not in the government career she anticipated, Feldhahn doesn't think her career path has strayed too far from its original course.

"The job I do now still ties into the public interest," she says. With readers all around the country flipping their newspapers to her column and grabbing her books off the shelves, Feldhahn is reaching the people she always wanted to reach -- just not in a way she ever expected.