FROM OUR ARCHIVES: Thacker and Shouse collaborate on children’s book
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The Beattyville Enterprise -Thursday, January 21, 2016
When many think of authors, they recall writers of best sellers like Tom Clancy, Stephen King, JK Rowling or Jackie Collins. They are in the elite of writers. Their words transport us to worlds we know, if not in life, in the books they write.
They make us think and they entertain. Before rising to the top of the writer’s pinnacle though salesman, a teacher, a single mother living on odd jobs, a bad girl actress. It didn’t matter what walk of life they came from, there was something that made them write and their stories captured the imagination of the world.
Kellie Thacker, a wife and mother to Ethan, is a 2001 graduate of Lee County High School and has the same need to write. Since her first forarys in writing poetry in high school and a teacher who encouraged her to write.
She has gone on to write five books. Most are geared toward young adults with her latest, “Gideon”, being geared toward children.
In her own words this is how her trek begins. “Redemption is the first novel I successfully completed in 2007. For several years, I submitted query after query to literary agencies only to be turned down over and over. Most used the same excuse that they were already representing a book in my genre. Keeping the faith, I wrote a sequel, “Sacrifice”, and then started a third. But after getting turned down more times than I could count, I took a break from writing. For a couple of years, I focused on a raising my son. Then, I took the advice of a literary agent and wrote something different, a novel entitled “His Name is Moonlight”.
I did not try as hard to get this one published as the others, because, by then, I was researching self-publishing.
Last year in 2013, the Lord blessed me to discover Amazon’s self-publishing. CreateSpace and Kindle Direct. It was not exactly what I had in mind, but my dream of becoming a published writer was becoming a reality.
“Redemption” was the first in a trilogy that included “Redemption”, “Sacrifice”, and “Grace”. It tells the journey of a young woman who loses faith when her life is turned upside down by the death of her parents. It is a tale of love, faith, and vampires.
“His Name is Moonlight” tells the tale of a young woman who is part of a mission to a Maori tribe in New Zealand. IT is a tale of human to beast transformations and the conflict between cultures.
“Little Gideon”, her current work, is a story of a mouse who wants to meet Jesus.
Leighandra Shouse, a mother of three to Sara Kate, Rebecca, and Rachel, is a 1985 graduate of Lee County High School. She discovered her art after working for 10 years as a hair dresser.
After opening her own beauty shop and operating it for four years, she decided to head to Lexington where she worked for “Masters in Hair Design” for six years. She did not like living in the city and came back home to Beattyville.
Without money or a steady source of income, she had to find a way to make gifts for others. She found some old paint and brush and started painting. She figured 10 years of hair color and make-up experience gave her the skills needed.
With the birth of her three daughters, she was a stay-at-home mom until they went to school. Then, she re-entered the workforce. She trucked to Winchester to work for eight years at Lowes in the paint department. She would listen to her daughters’ softball games on a speaker phone while she worked.
She left Lowes when one of her daughter’s called her after she bloodied up her face after riding a four wheeler before going to a middle school dance.
Back home, Shouse’s hand painted gifts to friends had grown into contracted custom painting projects. Finding canvas boring, she paints on gourds, fireman helmets, saw blades, tobacco sticks, or pretty much anything that doesn’t move. She is also a regular at the Woolly Worm Festival.
Thacker and Shouse met at the Small Business Saturday this December. They hit it off immediately. Thacker’s words, “Recently, I met a woman at a convention for small business shopping. She and I set up tables selling our products at the same venue. She sold gourds that she painted herself. They were beautiful. At the time, the thought of asking for her help never crossed my mind. Afterward, every time I prayed about finding an illustrator, her face came to mind. So, I contacted her. Neither of these artists has worked on a collaborative project previously, but according to comments during the interviews, they continue to get along and are hoping to have the book completed soon.
Both of these ladies have overcome many obstacles to first discover then master their art forms. This kind of commitment is what creates artists who reach the pinnacle of their professions. It might not be a bad idea to get a copy of “Little Gideon” when it comes out and have them sign it. It might be worth a lot of money some day.
To learn more about these local talents, go to kelliethacker.wordpress.com or Facebook.com/shousehousegourds.
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