{Guest Post} Faith McKay- Author of Prophecy Girl

Posted January 5, 2013 by Michelle @ Book Briefs in Guest Post / 3 Comments

Today I have a really great guest post from Faith McKay, author of Prophecy Girl! Thank you so much for being here Faith 🙂

My Five Favorite Reading Experiences As a Child

Some people don’t start reading until they’re old enough to remember their first time, but I was reading well before I have memories from my life. I could probably write a biography of my life based just on experiences I’ve had reading.

Because of this, there are a lot of books that I don’t know what I think about, but they hold a special place in my heart none the less. Every time I see their covers or think of the characters, I’m filled with the warm memories I have of reading them.

I thought it would be fun to share some of my favorite early reading experiences and the ways they impacted me. My top five memories are…

Reading mother goose stories with my grandfather. I have two copies of this book, and one of them is so beat up that the cover isn’t attached and some of the pages are illegible, but I still keep both copies around. I would sit on his lap in the rocking chair, and he would skip around the book to read his favorite parts.

Pippi Longstocking in the first grade. My teacher read the first Pippi book out loud, and after that I was hooked. I started sleeping with my feet up on my pillow and wished for red hair and better looking pig tails. I wished my dad was a pirate, and a monkey friend. This was the first time I remember wanting to just live within a book.

Reading Wayside Stories in my third grade class. My teacher would read a chapter a day, and replaced the names of the students with kids from my class. If you haven’t read these books, each chapter title is the name of one of the students and tells their individual tales. I was Jenny, who was late to class. This was one of those fun things were everyone in class got involved,and it was just such a cool thing that every one around me was just as involved in the story as I was.

Matilda. In this really pure and beautiful and simple way, Matilda introduced the idea that my abusive parents were not fault. That’s such a huge concept that you wouldn’t think I could come to it through a book, but that’s exactly why I believe in the power of reading. I had this relationship with Matilda, and her love of books, and she gave me hope that someday I’d find better people (like Miss Honey) myself.

A Wrinkle In Time. I don’t remember a lot of the book, to tell you the truth, and I had no idea that it was a series until I was an adult. However, this book will always be at the top of my list because of the amazing, confused, and transcendent feeling I had after reading it. I’d always known I wanted to write my own stories, but A Wrinkle In Time felt to me like this huge stretch of the imagination, and I knew after reading it that I wanted to try and push my own brain far enough to come up with something so strange.

So there you have it, five of the most memorable of my early reading experiences. What are yours?

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Prophecy Girl by Faith McKay

Ever since Samantha Winthrop’s mother moved them to Lacuna Valley, supposedly in search of better weather, the list of strange questions she has no answers for has been growing out of control.
Does her little sister, Violet, have the ability to make things happen just by “praying” for them? Are Sam’s dreams really predicting the future? Is she destined to marry the boy she just met, and what is the mysterious orb that he’s guarding? Why does she get the impression that there are dangerous creatures watching from the woods?
While Sam should be focusing on answering those questions, there is one other that makes them seem almost irrelevant: Is her mother planning on killing her and Violet?

Faith McKay writes stories about characters with real world struggles in otherworldly settings. She is the author of PROPHECY GIRL, a story where characters struggle with the idea of having a destiny. In comparison, she feels really lucky that her destiny was to struggle with comma placement and be that awkward lady who points out puns at parties.

Other things to know about Faith… She wears two different colored shoes. She is a survivor of child abuse. She has lived with chronic illness for over a decade. A lot of people don’t like her because she laughs too much. It’s also the reason a lot of other people do like her, so go figure. She listens to more music than people are probably supposed to. She’s a nomad. The word sounds really cool, so a lot of people say it, but she actually lives in an RV with her husband and their pet bunny rabbit, Dorian Gray.

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