Leslie Keller Books

My niece, who just turned thirteen, is an avid reader.  It makes sense because she comes from a family of readers.  Both of her parents love to read, as do her Aunts and Uncle and her grandmother (my mom).  What is exciting to me is that at her age she also loves to write.  When I was younger than her I wrote my first short stories.  They were about horses and young girls and summer camp.  They reflected my very limited world view and although I can't remember much about them now, I think they were rather rudimentary. Hannah writes about a lady who loves fashion and her exotic shoe collection.  She writes fantasy and suspense.  Every one of her short stories I have read I have fallen in love with.  Not just because I am her Aunt but because for her age she writes amazingly well.  Her latest composition stunned me and led me to enter her in a writing competition.  It is the story of a lady who lived her life alone until th...

It pains me to admit that I have done absolutely nothing which involves writing for most of this month.  I don't know where the time went, except for the long weekend I spent visiting family in the mid-west.  For the rest of the month it seems I've done nothing at all. This situation makes me wonder just how dedicated I am to writing and getting my work published.  Wouldn't you think for someone who has one novel finished, another one outlined and begun and a short story only mere words from completion that she would be anxious to move forward?  I lay blame on my other job - the one that gives me a paycheck on a regular basis for taking up my time and leaving my brain exhausted at the end of the day.  I blame my desire to celebrate life and enjoy my free time by doing activities that take me away from the keyboard.  I blame my partner for having a birthday, okay I don't really blame him for that!  But to be totally honest, I blame myself ...

As a breast cancer survivor I don't think about cancer one month a year.  I think about it every day of every month of every year.  Once you have been touched by this disease it never completely leaves your mind.  I don't obsess about it but I never completely forget about it either.  In my family we have four survivors - my step sister Beth who was diagnosed over twenty years ago at the age of 28.  Myself, having just celebrated my eleven year anniversary of being cancer free.  My sister-in-law, Carolyn who is a two time cancer survivor and is at her nine year mark.  Lastly my youngest sister, Laura who has just passed her two year mark.  You've probably heard it said but when one person in your family or immediate circle is affected with cancer of any kind - everyone is affected.  It's not just the person fighting the disease it's everyone who knows her. Although I was far from my family geographically when I fought my battle, I was ble...