Michelle Kelly lives in a cute little cottage she calls "The Writery." in Torbay, a suburb of Auckland, New Zealand. Originally from the Deep South, she moved to Auckland as a teenager, but remains a Southern girl at heart. The two best things she ever grew are her sons Paul and Mike. These boys were the inspiration for her novel, "Payback", which became a "NZ Post" Finalist in 2008. In fact, Michelle loves mixing truth with a bit of fiction which makes her friends and family extremely nervous that someday, something they say or do, might end up in a novel. From the age of five, Michelle knew she wanted to be a writer, but it wasn't until her boys went to school that she thought she'd 'give it a go'. In 1997, she enrolled in a correspondence course and by misinterpreting the assignment wrote her first, accidental, novel. The surprised tutor reiterated the instructions, but his final comment was, "It's not bad; you should try and get it published." It still remains in the bottom drawer in the study, gathering dust. Not wanting to get locked into one particular genre, Michelle randomly alternates between writing pre-teen fiction, chick-lit, and historical fiction. Her new novel, "Riverstones", a historical fiction based in Central Otago, New Zealand, came to her in a dream. Michelle hopes to write the movie screenplay of "Riverstones" soon so she can showcase the beauty of the Central Otago landscape to the world.