At the tender age of five a little girl sat beneath an old apple tree; a place of refuge to escape a less than perfect childhood.
Alone with her thoughts she chased away the loneliness and boredom with stories she created from her imagination.
Years later, Janice Walters Rawlins would recognize those early attempts at story telling as where her passion for writing began.
“I was five years old when I realized I had a passion for story telling”, Rawlins said. “I can remember being made to sit under an old apple tree all day when I was a little girl, and that’s when I started making up stories to escape from a horrible childhood.”
Rawlins also remembers how she would tell stories to her cousins when she was a young girl.
“I was a story teller when I was young all my relatives can tell you that”. Rawlins said.
But it wasn’t until she was in high school that Rawlins started writing down her creative thoughts.
“I was a freshman in high school when I first started writing short stories”. Rawlins said. “Mrs. Well was my English teacher and she was the one who told me I had a very creative mind and that I should go to college to become an author.”
A life of marriage, children and working full-time put Rawlins dream of becoming a published author on the back burner.
With a Bachelors degree in Social Work and an internship at a shelter for homeless women Rawlins went about life as usual then came the discovery of cancer.
“When I found out I had cancer I started writing to help me overcome the depression of being sick”, Rawlins said. “That’s when I started to write my first book. I wanted to turn the negative into something positive through writing”.
Rawlins says her ideas for short stories come from keeping her eyes and ears open to life that is happening all around her.
“I am very creative and very open minded. My ideas come from things around me and watching people and listening to what people have to say. It does not take me long to come up with an idea of what to write”, Rawlins said.
With two books under her belt, Rawlins says the process has been a long and difficult road to travel.
“I have written two books. My first book is titled “Where are They”, which is a mystery and is being published through Trafford Publishing Company. My second book is called “Tattoo Granny”, a comedy dedicated to all grand parents who are raising their grandchildren in some way or another”, Rawlins said.
Publishing a book is expensive and time consuming. Marketing is another big part of promoting your book.
My books are short novels that I hope my readers will find to be interesting page turners.”
A native of Bath County Rawlins is the daughter of the late Austin Walters and Francine Anderson. She and her husband Lloyd Dean have called Menifee County home for the past 33 years and have two children, Jennifer Rawlins Sorrell and Joseph Rawlins.
