Kay Beth Faris-Avery

Kay Beth Avery, a native of southern Colorado, has been in love with the "Old West" since she was a little girl sitting in a ranch house kitchen listening to her father and his siblings conjure up stories about real western characters. Usually they peppered their own personal accounts with a mixture of truth and folklore. Maybe that's why the merging of history and literature became second nature for Kay Beth at an early age.

Kay Beth's second book, TALES FROM THE TRAPPERS' TRAIL, was a finalist in the 2010 New Mexico Book Awards. Her short story, "Homesteaders," from the book entitled WARRIORS, WIDOWS, AND ORPHANS, earned third place in the 2003 Tom Howard International Short Story Contest. Recently Western Reflections Publishing Company released her newest book, UNBROKEN SPIRITS: THREE EXTRAORDINARY SOUTHERN COLORADO WOMEN, while the Arcadia Publishing Company soon plans to distribute ALONG THE HUERFANO RIVER as an addition to its Images of America series.

Her e-book, THE PROMISE UNKEPT, recounts the true story of an aviation ordnanceman who survived major naval battles in World War II. Kay Beth wrote the book as a final tribute to her father-in-law and to all the modest heroes who served on the USS Enterprise (CV-6).

Over the past four decades, this author has won national short story contests and published several professional journal articles on the subjects of reading, technical writing, integrating English and social studies, and legal guidelines for journalism teachers. Several of these can still be found online.

Kay Beth was an educator for thirty years. She taught English in a rural high school within northwestern Kansas, a middle school on the island of Guam, and a boarding school on New Mexico's Navajo Reservation. She served as a media specialist at Oak Ridge High School in Orlando, Florida, and eventually retired from the position of curriculum specialist/librarian at the Technical Education Center Osceola in Kissimmee, Florida. As a writer she now strives to make history come alive for both adolescent and adult readers by writing well-researched historical fiction and creative biographies.

Kay Beth has been married to Charles W. Avery for over forty years. She is the mother of two daughters and the loving admirer of three handsome grandsons.