December Featured Author!
Our December featured author received the most hits to her IAN member page for the month of November 2013
I was raised in the northeastern United States, in the heart of Pennsylvania Dutch Country, and resided in a half-dozen homes or towns throughout my growing up years. My father was a reverend with a flourishing career, moving the family to various parishes as his calling dictated, which I view in a positive light as I was exposed to different communities and lifestyles. After graduating from high school at the age of seventeen, I shook off my less worldly roots when I moved with my father to Massachusetts, a seemingly more sophisticated and progressive state. It was there that I embarked on a learning journey, thrilled at living so close to the sea in the artsy and historic fishing village of Gloucester, the hex signs and covered bridges soon a fond memory.
Thrilled to begin college in New England, I jumped in with both feet and managed to excel in biological and psychological studies, despite majoring in dating. Throughout my school years, I dabbled in poetry and short stories, purely for personal self-expression. I experimented with a couple of creative writing classes, but never pursued my secret desire of a writing career, feeling the vocation was too self-indulgent, not sensible enough for my German blood. I remained focused on psychology and received a Bachelor of Arts degree, upon which I secured my very first “real” job as a Senior Psychiatric Counselor at a group home for adults with mental illness. Wanting to further my learning, I attended Suffolk University in Beacon Hill in Boston, and graduated two years later, obtaining a Masters degree in Counseling and Human Relations.
Soon afterward, feeling weighed down by too many sunless days and frigid winters, I decided to move to a much lighter state, and settled in bustling Pinellas County in southwestern Florida. Over the next twenty years I concentrated further on my work in counseling and social services
and became a licensed practitioner. During these years, my career included being a social services director for a nursing center, program manager for a rehabilitation agency, social services consultant for nursing centers, program director of an Alzheimer’s unit, and a hospice counselor.
Several years ago, due to a deep longing to express my feelings in an alternative manner, I literally sat down one day and began writing my first novel. The resultant book, The Resurrection of Hannah, (published in 2011) had been born out of a series of powerful dreams, along with compelling and coexisting experiences that inspired me to create a story that would capture the strength of my emotions. I had a yearning to shape a tale based around individuals in my life that I believed would make engaging characters. I had a strong desire to experience a higher level of creativity, to literally produce something out of nothing– a fascinating and challenging endeavor I could not ignore. It was during this time that I moved to Houston for three years, where I started a private practice as a psychotherapist and became a certified clinical hypnotherapist.
But I grew “antsy” as my father used to say and decided to move back to friends and family in Florida and worked again at the local Hospice, then more recently in community and private mental health. Once bitten by the writing bug, I could not help but pen my second work of fiction, The Fear of Things to Come, published in the summer of 2012. I am now in the process of writing another novel in what I consider a unique collection of adventure stories, the third in the Samantha Clark Mystery Series. I also write thought-provoking, inspirational blogs.
The Independent Author Network would like to thank Kathyre for her hard work in promoting her IAN member page and IAN in general. Over 4,200 readers visited her IAN member page in October.
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