Meet Allyson Kennedy 😀

 

Well hey there y’all, welcome to my author blog! *Blushes awkwardly* 🙂

My name is Allyson Kennedy, and I will soon be plunging into the deep unknown of self-publishing my first novel, Can’t Beat the Heart of a Carolina Girl. To tell you the truth, I’m half-frightened, yet half-hopeful. But, you know what? God’s got this!

Writing became a passion of mine at the age of seven, when my aunt gave me a Mary Kate & Ashley notebook for Christmas. I filled the pages with short stories about the adventures of Beary the Bear (based on my oh-so-originally named teddy bear, duh!), Agent Allyson (a rather dorky spy series, if you must know), and even nonfiction pieces about my favorite animals. After filling four notebooks with stories over the years, I eventually moved on to poems and song lyrics.

But yeah, let’s not relive the horrors of my freshman year poetry phase. *Shudders* XD

I first began writing Can’t Beat the Heart of a Carolina Girl the summer after my freshman year of high school, back in 2009. A year and a half later, I had a complete manuscript. As anyone would be upon finishing their first novel, I was psyched. Nevertheless, though I’ve always dreamed of becoming a published author, I didn’t pursue publication until last November.

Maybe it was the fact that I had read over and edited Can’t Beat the Heart of a Carolina Girl earlier last year, or that I saw a commercial for a Christian publishing company on TV, but I soon sent my manuscript off to a couple of Christian publishing houses.

On November 30, 2016, I received my first manuscript rejection and acceptance within hours of one another.

I won’t mention the name of either publisher, because I decided not to go with the publishing house that accepted me. Long story short, they wanted me to pay X-amount of money for “marketing”, to which I declined. So, now I’m on the verge of publishing with Amazon’s CreateSpace.

 

Authoring Arrowheads?

 

Most of the novels I’m working on are set in the small fictional town of Grahamwood, North Carolina. Due to my obsession with archery (in concept, since I’ve never actually learned to use a bow), I named Grahamwood’s high school team the Grahamwood Arrowheads, paying homage to fictional characters like Robin Hood and Katniss Everdeen. Authoring Arrowheads is the name I gave to the school’s yearbook mentioned in CBTHOACG, and the name struck me as a perfect fit for this blog!

 

Thank you for stopping by today, my fellow Arrowheads! Please stay tuned to find out when Can’t Beat the Heart of a Carolina Girl will enter the Amazon market!

-Allyson 😀