01/10/2025
The only book review that will matter to me this year! For those who are familiar with my first book, The Story of Michelle Brown Vandivere, published under Ava Sprayberry Shook, the book was dedicated to my ninth grade Lit/Comp teacher. In 2024, through a teacher’s appreciation post made by Bartow County Schools, and God directing Mrs. Campbell’s son to my comment, I was able to reconnect with her.
Ladies and gentlemen, this woman’s opinions of my books mean more than any other simply because she took interest in the talents of a 14 year old girl who had been bullied throughout school, and despite a love of learning, just simply didn’t care anymore.
Before meeting Mrs. Campbell, my goal in life was to turn 18, take my 87 Trans Am and move to Nashville to live out of my car and wait tables to pay for studio time to become a country music icon. I didn’t care to finish my education, go to college, or anything else. No backup plan or anything; just make it or wait tables my whole life.
This teacher, through her many writing assignments, noticed my talent for storytelling. She encouraged me to embrace my talent, to work it, and strengthen it. I began writing short stories again, as well as poetry. She bled more red ink on my work than she probably ever had to do on my actual assignments. She honed my craft, and by the end of that semester with her, I had plans to further my education. I’ve would graduate high school, and then attend college at the University of Maine in Orono where Stephen King taught creative writing and gothic fiction.
I never made it to Maine. Life has other plans. However I did get my GED, attend college for a degree in criminal justice, and keep my promise that the first book I ever published would be dedicated to her.
In 2010, I got to walk the halls of Cass High School and surprise her in her journalism class to present her with the signed copy of my first novel.
