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 al...