Personal Author Bio
I am an award-winning author, speaker, and writing coach. I live in Co. Meath, Ireland with my husband and two children. My writing was published in several magazines and journals in 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019. I am also the author of Surviving Suicide: A Memoir from Those Death Left Behind, published in 2012. When I’m not writing for work clients, I am usually reading the latest novels from some of the amazing authors out there, or sharing snippets from my latest manuscripts with my husband and children.
I’ve always loved writing. My passion began at a very young age and I wrote my first book at the age of 9. Writing my first full-length novella, Finding Forever, was my first step into the fiction publishing world and while I was nervous, I was also very excited. This has been my dream for so long and to finally have the courage to pen stories and publish them is something I always wanted to do.
Finding Forever began as a prompt from my writers’ group. Our prompt was “pirates” and I wrote the first 1,000 words ending where Liz finds herself on the pirate ship. It sat idle on my laptop for almost a year before I picked it up again. I was doing a page a day challenge and decided that for the month I would work on finishing some of the pieces in my “to be completed” file on my computer. Little did I know when I picked up my pen to work on this that it would turn into a novella. The twists and turns that Finding Forever takes were a total surprise to me. I hadn’t planned the story. I never dreamed it would be any more than a short story. The moment when I wrote about cameras, I knew something wonderful was about to happen. When I write, I allow the characters to tell me their story. I don’t plan things out. I just let the story tell itself. I was so pleased with the initial beta reader response to this story which encouraged me to publish. In July 2017, I discovered that Finding Forever had made the list of 98 Best Books of 2017 according to Goodreads users and it was also nominated for a 2017 Summer Indie Book Award which it went on to win in the Best Thriller category.
My second novel, Save Her Soul, began in the same way. I had finished writing Finding Forever and just picked up my pen and started writing something new. This is an urban fantasy/paranormal novel, that also contains romance. I really enjoyed getting to know my characters. My main character, Kate, is stubborn and very feisty and I’m sure you’ll love her as much as I do. This book released on the 1st of August 2017 and it took the Silver Award for Best Paranormal in the Virtual Fantasy Con Book Awards in 2017.
I also secured a two-book publishing deal with Handersen Publishing. A children’s book publisher based in Nebraska. The first of these books Nightmare Realities was published in September 2017. It is a collection of spooky stories for children aged between 9 and 14. The second book Nightmare Realities 2 was published in 2019.
In 2018 I’ve took part in two anthologies with a number of bestselling and award-winning authors. The first anthology, Breaking the Myths, included my novella, Hear Me Cry, which I later self-published as a standalone in May 2018. Hear me Cry is a fantasy romance retelling of the Irish legend of the Banshee and it went on to win Book of the Year at the 2018 Dublin Writers Conference in June.
The second anthology is an Angels & Magic themed collection of novels and it includes the first book in my new Cursed Angels series.
In 2019, I also completed a number of stories for anthologies that were all a great success and I put the finishing touches to my new novel Winterland which will be published by Spellbound Books in December 2022.
The pandemic saw a lot of changes for me and in the second half of 2021 I begin working with JM Agency, a publishing consultancy based here in Ireland. I am working with my client to help them polish their books and make them the best they can be. It is amazing to see them having the success and securing publishing deals and I am excited to help even more writers around the world this year too in both a coaching and mentoring capacity.
If you’d like to keep up to date with what I’m working on, you can find more information on my Facebook author page: http://www.facebook.com/amandajevanswriter. and I also have a readers group where you will find snippets of new work and more. You’ll find my readers group here.