My Pitch Wars Mentee Bio

Welcome visiting Pitch Wars mentors to my Writer's Dojo!

Kick off your shoes and feel free to look around.

 

Inspired by Christopher Keelty & Phil Stamper's creative posts,
I give you my Pitch Wars Mentee bio.

 

Due to the fact that there are four mentors, to whom I submitted my entry, here are four reasons you want to pick me as your Pitch Wars mentee:

 1. I literally kick butt. I am a black belt and sensei in Isshin-ryu karate.  Studying martial arts takes dedication, perseverance, spirit, and patience.

 (In the spirit of full disclosure, I’m still working on the patience piece, but I’ve got dedication, perseverance, and spirit in spades!”

2. Fearless, Focused and Flexible  In 2009, I competed in the Isshin-ryu World Championship Tournament. At the last second the judges had me perform with a staff bo that was longer and heavier than my bo. During my kata, a child ran through my ring as I was swinging the six foot long staff. I adjusted my swing, so I wouldn’t hit the child, finished the kata, and left the tournament with two first place trophies.

(So we could add "I don’t hit kids with sticks" to my pros list.

That’s a definite plus!)

 3. Time spent studying my target group in their natural habitat. I have several years of experience teaching eighth grade English. Teaching middle school is a full immersion program into the teenage culture. During my time as a teacher, I have observed the interactions of teenagers in the classroom, cafeteria, at their lockers, sporting events, dances, parent-teacher conferences, play practices, assemblies, and in restrooms (Let me clarify, that those observations took place only in the girls’ bathrooms and only when the staff bathroom was occupied during my 2-minute break between classes.)

  

                            Chocolate letters of recommendations from my students

 

     In addition, thanks to my 13-year-old son, I now have the pleasure of studying a teenager in his home habitat.  All of these observations serve as rich, authentic fodder for my YA writing.

4. Team player Instead of describing my strengths in this category, as I have so humbly done in the categories above, I asked Anywar Ricky Richard to describe how I work with others. Ricky inspired the manuscript, FINDING OBENO, which I’ve entered in Pitch Wars. Here is what Ricky emailed in response to my request:

I have been working directly with Keely close to three years now on my personal life story as a child soldier and how I am using my freedom and personal story to heal others with the same experiences so that they can find their home.

I would personally describe Keely as an extra-ordinary gentle person, for she applies herself with absolute dedication to her writing, she is social and has strong analytical skills and hand on approach to her writing.

Keely has demonstrated high level of maturity and commitment towards her writing while working with me.

She has strong personal motivation, interpersonal skills and ability to work effectively with people across all ranks and cultures. She has demonstrated strong writing skills and is very action oriented.

Keely always keeps time with her writing and is very cooperative, hard-working, very patience and kind.

I am enjoying working with her, especially her skills, experience and flexibility, being self-motivated, cooperative, highly sound minded with good proven integrity.

I strongly believe that Keely writing career is strong and she will be writing many books in the nearby future to come.

Anywar Ricky Richard, Founder of Friends of Orphans

 

As you can see, I work well with others and pour my heart and soul into our collaboration. It is also important to note, that according to Ricky, I am of very sound mind, which is good. You don’t want to be working with a crazy mentee.

Okay, sometimes I can be a little nutty.

Thank you for visiting my blog and reading my mentee bio.

If it made you laugh and you are enthusiastic

about my Pitch Wars entry,

I would love to work with you.