LAURA S. KEARNEY

I would like to tell you a little about myself. I live in the Midwest where I was raised, and I love the environment even though winter can be bitter cold. In my spare time I enjoy cooking, gardening, and family history.

 

I have loved reading fantasy since my older brother gave me The Hobbit to read at age ten, but my interest in writing began during a 6th grade Literature Arts class. The teacher presented a unit on writing short stories, which I enjoyed. One story I remember writing was about an animal trying to cross a highway at night with cars driving by. My class had to anonymously grade each other’s work in review groups, but we didn’t do so well, and the teacher chided us for grading the stories poorly.

When she read the first paragraph of one short story to emphasize her point, I could not believe that she was reading mine! I had only considered the class assignment as a fun activity, but after hearing that my teacher felt I deserved an A on my paper, I decided that writing might be something I was actually good at and would enjoy pursuing.

 I have been writing ever since, even though most of what I wrote was just for practice. I experimented with a few different genres, but nothing felt as comfortable as my old favorite, fantasy. I took two correspondence writing courses from The Institute of Children’s Literature and The Long Ridge Writer’s Group. One of those writing assignments became The Crystal Journey. More recently I returned to college and earned an Associate of Arts from Highland Community College, a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature Studies at University of Illinois-Springfield, and a Master of Arts in Program for Writing from University of Illinois-Chicago.

For those of you on social media, I have a Goodreads Page, an X (formerly Twitter) Page, a Pinterest Page, and a Facebook Author’s Page.