Houston's Lynne Kelly

By Margaret Lea

Lynne Kelly, from our own Houston SCBWI regional team, has turned her lifelong love of animals into three published books. 

In 2006, while working as a special education teacher reading with her students, Lynne became interested in writing. To hone her craft she joined the SCBWI, found a writing group, attended conferences and seminars, and read books such as Stephen King’s ON WRITING, Anne Lamott’s BIRD BY BIRD and multiple books by Lisa Cron.

To write, Lynne begins with something, usually a fact about an animal, that sparks her interest, then she figures out the characters who will live in the story and the plot to go with them. 

Her first manuscript started as a picture book, but the leader of her writing group suggested it would work better as a novel. She agreed and it became her first book, CHAINED. It took three years to write and edit, but she found an agent quickly. It sold in 2010 and came out in 2012. Her next book, SONG FOR A WHALE, which now has almost 2,000 5-star reviews on Amazon, came out in 2019. THE SECRET LANGUAGE OF BIRDS came out in April 2024 and her next book, THREE BLUE HEARTS, is scheduled for publication in 2025. Only one book, a mystery written after her debut, has not been published and she doesn’t think it ever will be.

She is currently represented by Molly O’Neill at Root Literary, whom she first met at a conference when Molly was an editor. By the time Lynne felt her first agent was no longer supportive of her work, Molly had become an agent and she submitted her mystery book to her, with a short sentence about the book she was currently working on, SONG FOR A WHALE. Molly passed on the mystery book but said, “Send me the whale one when it’s finished.” The rest is history!

Fun fact: 

Lynne has worked as a sign language interpreter since graduating from college, and as a freelancer, she is able to split her time flexibly between interpreting and writing. During the pandemic, the interpreting jobs dried up, and she was able to focus on writing. She plans to always do some interpreting work because she enjoys it, but also so she doesn’t lose her fluency in sign language.

Check out Lynne's website to see a picture of Abigail and Eloise, her two adorable dogs, as well as learn more about Lynne and her books.