Kris Abel-Helwig

Kris Abel-Helwig is the author, graphic designer, photographer, and illustrator of multiple picture books and young adult novels. Fictional characters inhabit her dreams and haunt her nightmares. Their stories emerge while swimming laps, walking pups, and drinking espresso. Substitute teaching inspired her young adult Hero series, including the award-winning I WISH MY WORDS TASTED BETTER. Her newest endeavor, a captivating modern crime fiction novel, RULE OF ODDS: FRESH CUT, is about a twenty-five-year-old crime scene photographer with botanical knowledge who is drawn into the hunt for a serial killer that leaves victims clutching flowers with dark meanings.

Originally from Illinois, she and her husband Mike have moved coast to coast and many states in between. They now live on the side of a mountain in Colorado with a herd of animals and look forward to visits from their three sons, two daughters-in-law, four grandkids, and friends near and far. Diagnosed with breast cancer in 2001, a benign brain tumor in 2022, and breast cancer again in 2026, she advocates early detection, aggressive treatments, and thriving happily ever after...