Republican Congressman-elect Writing Elizabeth Smart's Memoir

Ten years after her kidnapping, Elizabeth Smart is telling her story.

St. Martin's Press bought the rights to the Salt Lake City woman's memoir. It's being written by a Republican congressman-elect from Utah, Chris Stewart, who has authored books with religious and patriotic themes.

Smart's publicist says the book won't just be a story of Smart's nine months of captivity, but how she turned it into a cause for child advocacy after her improbable rescue by police along a suburban street in March 2003.

Smart says she was waiting for the conviction of Brian David Mitchell before collaborating on her story. Mitchell is serving two life sentences for snatching the then-14-year-old Smart from her bedroom at knifepoint.

Stewart  —  a business owner and a New York Times best-selling author who served 14 years as a pilot in the Air Force — won election to Utah's 2nd Congressional District with 62 percent of the vote in the Nov. 6 election, defeating Democrat Jay Seegmiller for an open seat created when Utah was awarded an additional representative to Congress.

It was a quiet race with few controversies, the Deseret News reported.