About Kelly Collamore
Kelly Collamore is the author of two unpublished novels, Woods Wars and White Spots. She has also written several short stories and intends to turn a few of them into novels. Her writing spans middle grade adventure and historical fiction but her next work will be a science fiction story she's been developing in her head (on nights she can't sleep) for the past eight years.
A native Arkansan, Collamore draws inspiration from the people, culture, and natural beauty that make the great state of Arkansas so special. For Collamore, place is a critical character in all of her stories and she continually strives to develop it in ways that live up to its splendor. She grew up floating rivers and building forts in the deep woods and wouldn't trade it for the world. She spent twenty-five years living and working in New York City and now resides on the North Fork of Long Island with her husband and two children.
She is an enthusiastic participant in her local library writers' group and is starting a young writers' circle in the fall for children.
Woods Wars
Eleven-year-old Henrietta Crawford, her siblings, and best friend set out to build their most elaborate fort yet in a giant pecan tree but their plans are interrupted when the bullies down the road, Kenny and Curtis Bledsoe, turn their menacing attention to them and start attacking. Hennie and her crew pull together to defend their forts but they also must contend with the bigger bully in town, Cash Longing, the local real estate tycoon who plans to bulldoze the woods and build a treeless subdivision called Smoking Oaks. Hennie learns about the Caddo people who lived on this land for thousands of years and grapples with complicated feelings and contradictions of her own. The fight over the forts uncovers the ugly and brutal history of the centuries-long struggle over land.
Woods Wars is a coming of age story about a girl in small town Arkansas in 1985 who must find her confidence among the chaos of change, truth of the past, and uncertainty of the future.
This middle grade adventure novel is complete at 65,000 words and Collamore is currently looking for representation.
White Spots
Cherry, a fifteen year-old girl living in near seclusion on the White River, spends her days shelling for mussel pearls to help support her family. The last thing she is looking for is adventure but after crossing paths with a stranger and weathering a tragic loss, she embarks on a journey to escape the grips of grief. What she finds is an unfamiliar world that tests her anchors of good and evil and opens her eyes to wider possibilities.
This story begins with hints of a Greek tragedy (including a sympathetic cricket chorus) and progresses into an allegory relishing the lessons taught by a variety of unassuming characters. A good Lord bird, vaudevillians with questionable morals, an owl, an elderly baker with a soft heart, a Shakespeare-loving donkey, a misunderstood fugitive, and a ghost transform her grief into a map she must use to find her true home.
Set in the Arkansas Delta in 1919, White Spots is a story of a girl who navigates the rivers and swamps instead of her own heart and discovers the two are inextricably linked.
Collamore is in the process of revising this 68,000 word story and the final manuscript will be ready in November.