My Between The Covers Interview with Anita B Carroll

Between The Covers with Author Kelly Ilebode

January 10, 2014 · by Anita · in Articles. ·

Who hasn’t spent this last year falling in love with Amira, Dragan and Aaron? Or maybe you got drawn into Alex’s world In Search of Grace?

Meet their creator, YATR Literary Awards Nominee – 2013 Favorite Author, Kelly Ilebode

This rural Maine woman comes from a large family, and is the seventh child of ten siblings.  At the very young age of five, life threw her a curve ball.  She was separated from her family.  All of her siblings except for three were sent to foster homes including her.  The day after she graduated from High School at the age eighteen, she hopped on a Greyhound bus headed to Boston, Massachusetts and never looked back.  She worked her way up from being a Nanny, to a receptionist to slowly climbing the corporate ladder.

Kelly Ilebode’s life story is a story unto itself, and some parts of her past are not ready to be shared, yet …

Today, in addition to working full-time, Kelly Ilebode is also a Self-Published Author, and has successfully accomplished to write five publications in less than 18 months.  In this interview we get to take a closer look at her inner workings as I ask questions about what inspires her to write these soul full, imaginative and wonderful stories.

.1. 

Anita:  How did you discover writing or did it find you?

Kelly:  Writing definitely found me, and quite honestly the second I learned to write I wrote and wrote and wrote.  The “real” writing started when I was nine.  My foster-mother gave me a note pad, and I filled the pages.  Several days later, I asked for another one.  After reprimanding me, for wasting paper, I quietly handed her my filled notepad.  I remember her reading the whole pad in one sitting, and just as quietly handed me another one.   The notepads eventually turned into journals filled to the brim with poetry and short stories.  I never thought of writing as a career, just something I did when I needed to release what ever was building up inside of me.

.2. 

Anita:  What inspires you to write?

Kelly:  I have no earthly idea.  My latest novel, was supposed to be a sweet romance story, but the moment I sat down and started typing, it has taken quite the turn, that even I cannot wait to find out what happens next.  What I do know for sure, is that when I do not write, I feel something building inside of me that is not necessarily good.  (Hard to explain.)  Sometimes I wake up at 3:00 am (that happened a lot when I wrote Kelly and the Angel.)   I could not go back to sleep, until I wrote what ever it was that needed to come out.  The next day, I was always surprised when the words made sense and fit into the book.

.3. 

Anita:  Our first project together was The Birth of the Sparrow from the Kelly and the Angel series. Being that Kelly is a modern-day prophet, and is someone who sees the future while in a trance.  We are curious and all want to know if the main character Kelly is based on you?

Kelly:  Yes and no.  Kelly, absolutely, looks nothing like me, her personality is part of who I used to be but I am not a seer or prophet.  That being said, I have had some uniquely strange (and what I think were spiritual) things happen in my lifetime that I cannot discredit.   To give a quick example, there was one particular event that happened in my life that was quite horrifying, and after years of the life I had already lived, I was tired and I was only fourteen.  I was all alone on a dirt road walking back to my foster home, and talking to myself asking what was the point in this life if all it was pain and abuse.   One moment I was alone, the next I wasn’t.  The stranger, a man, walked beside me, said my name, and told me not to give up hope.  That my life had purpose and meaning and I was important.  As we reached the top of the hill in the road, he was no longer with me, but I was a different person.  I had hope again and to this day (over 30 years later) I remember him clearly: his features, his smile, his voice and especially his eyes.  Years later I opened a gift shop and called it Kelly and the Angel after that brief moment in time.  When I wrote the Birth of the Sparrow, I named it the same as an homage to “him”.

Read more of this interview.....

About Anita B. Carroll:  Race-Point was established by the creative hands of Norwegian born Anita B. Carroll, Race-Point is a Visual Design provider with over 17 years of creative professional experience, and produces high-end quality cover creations for both print and online mediums including custom photography.  

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