Kasey Crawford Kellem, a School Counselor and former Special Education Teacher, has devoted her life to helping children facing adversity be resilient. Kasey created a series of book for kids titled Mind Over Matter (M.O.M.) Books to teach children skills to overcome life´s challenges. She has earned a Bachelor´s Degree and Masters Degree in Special Education and an Educational Specialist Degree in Counseling.
Many may wonder if this counselor turned author truly follows what she teaches others. Kellem shared a little about the process of finding publisher. She said, "I followed my own resiliency philosophy of BELIEVING I will find someone who believes in me! After one publisher declined my book despite a few months of correspondences, I simply put out a facebook post and one of my former students set me up with his sister´s publishing company. Lisa Mina from Halo Publishing International loved my books and their purpose! She focuses on children´s books, Christian books and books that help others! My book could have fallen under all three of those categories. I am grateful for social media!"
Kellem grew up in a "traditional nuclear family" as she put it, which included her mom, dad and three sisters in Fairview Park, Ohio. She said she played sports and percussion instruments in the band, and was pretty much the class clown. After attending Magnificat High School, she went on to earn her Bachelor´s and Master´s Degrees. She now is a counselor at Normandy High School and has created a wonder book series for not only children, but those who work with them as well.
Read the whole spotlight at
American Chronicle | Spotlight Interview with debut author Kasey Crawford Kellem
J.D. Holiday is the author and illustrator of two children’s books: Janoose the Goose, picture book and a chapter book for six to eight year olds, THE GREAT SNOWBALL ESCAPADE. A chapbook of her short stories called, Trespasses was published in 1994 and she has had short stories printed in literary magazines and numerous articles about writing and publishing published. She is a member of both The Society of Children’s Writers and Illustrators, (SCBWI) and Small Publishers of North America, (SPAN.) J.D. Holiday lives in the Delaware Valley of Pennsylvania. VS : I want to thank you for being my guest here on The Writing Mama today. It is so exciting because you are my first World of Ink Tour Guest. It’s been a fun couple of days and the tour is only getting started. Okay, so I know your children are grown and out of the house, but I’m sure you’ve had to balance your writing life around them at one time or another. I know being a parent and writer can be hard and I find ...