Ellen H Reed

When I was a kid, one of my favorite things to do was to draw weird pictures and create a story to go with them. Then, when I reached junior high, I decided to write a "novel". It never actually had a title, but it was well over 100 pages when I stopped working on it. It was during my WWII POW story phase, where I read every escape story written. In my book, my entire junior high was kidnapped by Nazis and my friends and I escaped by digging a tunnel with spoons. It was full of action, adventure, and adolescent humor. I still have it someplace. If I ever complete it, I'm sure it will be a best seller!

As an adult, I always had it in the back of my mind that I wanted to write, but was unsure where to start or what to write about. Then, one of my daughters introduced me to the world of fanfiction where writers created new stories involving characters from their favorite books, movies, TV shows, etc. I was amazed. I'd been doing that in my head for as long as I could remember. It was at the height of the Lord of the Rings movie craze, and being a huge fan, I decided to try writing a short LOTR story. I got up my nerve to post it on a site, got some positive reviews, and I was hooked. I have since written stories for LOTR, NCIS, Hogan's Heroes (back to that WWII POW thing!), and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. I saw writing fanfiction as a way to hone my skills but told few people about my new hobby.

Eventually, I desired to write something totally original, but again, wasn't sure where to start. A friend told me about National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) where the goal is to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. I decided that was the incentive I needed to buckle down and write a book for kids. One of my sisters told me that when our father bought a dry cleaning place, he found an old fur coat with a bullet in the lining. That was the inspiration for my first novel, "The Gangster's Gold". Since then, I have written eight other books for kids and am getting ready to publish my third book. My love is writing paranormal stuff.

As for myself, I am originally from New Jersey, am married, have four kids, three grandkids, and a pug named Winnie. We have lived in a variety of places from Indonesia to Alaska, with a lot of years in Texas. I spent many years involved with community theater, both as an actress and costumer; I am an avid quilter, enjoy traveling, genealogy, and history. Not to mention ghost stories. I have seen a couple of spirits myself, so it seems like a natural topic for my stories.

I hope you enjoy my stories and I'm always interested in hearing about the paranormal experiences of my readers!