Kelly Bennett is coming to town!

 

By Margaret Lea

  Kelly Bennett credits an elementary school teacher for praising her writing and sticking it on the board. This gave her confidence to write more.

     And surprisingly, it was Kelly’s unhappy first marriage that also spurred her writing. In 1985, while trying to make this marriage work, she decided to do something solely for herself. She wanted to take a volleyball class at the university near her, but they didn’t offer that. So instead, she took a class on writing and marketing children’s stories. There she fell in love with writing for children. She also met another woman, Ronnie Davidson, who became a writing partner for twenty years. They published their first book together in 1987 and five more over the years. 

     Kelly has now published around 25 books, both by herself and with others. She credits writing friends for keeping her accountable. For example, she and one friend would set a goal, like send each other a new chapter every week. They didn’t read each other‘s work— it was simply about sending it. They even set up monetary fines if they missed a week.

     Kelly is now happily remarried, but when her first marriage ended, she was a single mom with two young children. She often worked in a restaurant during the lunch shift so she could still take her kids to school and pick them up. Her primary goal was to be a great mom, but she wrote whenever and wherever she could. She wrote for magazines, books for hire, and even adult romance books.          

     Kelly is from California, but lived in Katy for a while, where she became involved with the Houston SCBWI group. She now lives in New York, but visits relatives in Houston several times a year. 

     At Houston SCBWI, she met Marty Graham, and they often traveled together to writing conferences. Their habit was to spend an extra day in the location after the conference ended. At one such conference in Florida, Sid Fleischman (award-winning children’s author) was a speaker.  When his plane home was canceled due to bad weather, Kelly and Marty ran into him in the hotel and spent about six hours discussing the specifics of their writing. In this serendipitous meeting, Sid presented the idea of letting a story idea stew in your unconscious mind for as long as needed until you could totally visualize the story. Only then do you write it down. This resonated with Kelly and she has been doing that ever since. Since every writer is unique, Kelly advises writers to try different practices until something works. 

     If you get her e-newsletter, you know that she and a friend have been writing a poem (in seven minutes) every day for the past eight years. She says it’s a fun exercise, even though most of her books are prose, not rhyming.

     Kelly is most known for her picture books Not Norman: A Goldfish Story and the recent The House That Ruth Built. Her newest release is Out of the Mouth of Babe, a 200-page collection of Babe Ruth quotes, complete with pictures and facts about Babe and baseball. 

     She is also very excited about her upcoming picture book Rainbow Kite, which comes out in July.  

     Her agent is Amy Brewer at Metamorphosis Literary Agency. She had three previous agents, but parted amicably with them for various reasons. 

     To learn more about Kelly, check out her website, kellybennet.com. And come to the in-person meeting on June 2, 2025 at the Tracy Gee Community Center, where she will present Goal Slump! How to Overcome It by Charting a Course for Success! That’s definitely a topic we can all benefit from!