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Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Meet New IAN Member J.M. Kelley



J
M. Kelley, a lifelong resident of Pennsylvania, is a writer of love stories, a painter, a painfully bad knitter, and a photographer – if the pursuit is artistic, chances are she’s dabbled in it.

After a lengthy break that included adventures in accounting and coffee distribution, she returned to her passion for writing with that old adage write what you know whispering from the deep recesses of her mind. She realized that she knows how to read a book on a moving skateboard, that if you’re riding shotgun in a pick-up truck, ‘mud’ can be used as a verb, Amish traffic jams can wreak havoc on your morning commute, and Hog Maw is not to be experienced by the faint of heart.

While this list of knowledge seemed random and borderline nonsensical, it led her to one rock-solid conclusion: life in the Keystone State is a rich and endless source of inspiration. And so, she sat down in front of her laptop and began to piece together a story about life in small-town Pennsylvania – something she knows a thing or two about. The result of this epiphany is Drew in Blue, a contemporary love story set in the fictional Appalachian town of River’s View, Pennsylvania, and filled with quirky characters that pay homage to the real life characters she’s had the pleasure of knowing all her life.

J.M. Kelley is quite the joiner. She's a member of the Romance Writers of America (PRO), The International Women's Writing Guild, Pennwriters, and the South Carolina Writers Workshop.

Her short story, Killing Me Softly, earned a first place finish in the In Other Words Competition at the 2010 Pennwriters Conference, and her non-fiction piece, Anniversary, was recognized with a Carrie McCray Memorial Literary Award at the 2010 South Carolina Writers Workshop Conference.


J.M. Kelley at The Independent Author Network

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