Local Authors Past and Present
Work in progress here -- the field is richer than first envisioned. We hope to incorporate past authors (Marianne Moore, Jean Craighead George, Hugh Henry Brackenridge, and so on), present authors/illustrators (Amy Bates, Megan Lloyd-Thompson, Adrienne Su, Kim van Alkemade, Sherry Knowlton, and so on), and books from authors who knew the Valley well and wrote about events here (Lois Lenski, Lois Lowry, Conrad Richter, and so on). We will organize them with category headers for better searching and annotate them with the particulars as we work on this. Keep checking!
A Gift of Name
A Gift of Name
Boy and his friends remember nothing of their lives before being taken as prisoners by order of the sorcerer Abirad. Robbed of their identities, they are forced to work as slaves until a new visitor to the workyards, a mysterious boy they call Lark, causes them hatch a daring escape plan. Now they must set out on a dangerous journey to discover who they were, but more importantly, who they want to be.
Val Cates is a teacher, author, and one of the founders of Writers 4 A Purpose. Her debut novel, A Gift of Name, is a Young Adult- Fantasy novel and the first book in The Stolen Heir Series. Val also hosts a series of videos on social media geared towards educating and inspiring fellow writers.
Val is an equal opportunity writer. She does not confine herself to a specific genre, format, or audience. She appreciates all of these things for the uniqueness they offer.
When Val is not writing, she spends most of her days educating the next generation of writers in her English-Language Arts classroom. She also enjoys spending time with her family, eating copious amounts of chocolate, awaiting her overdue letter from Hogwarts, and wondering if her teaching superpowers could be useful in the Marvel Universe.
Val lives in Pennsylvania, where winter is too cold, summer is too humid, but fall is heaven on earth.