My name is Kelly Epperson.  I am the father of four great kids, husband to my awesome teacher wife, a mathematician (MS Mathematics, College of Charleston ’08), a one-time editor of math textbooks (for five years… That’s a lot of math reading!), a musician (As often as I can find the time. I have a BA in Music Composition, College of Charleston ’07), and a US Marine Aviator (Active duty for 9 years, now a reservist).

I’m also an author.  I’ve always loved stories, and have written many without working toward any publishing goals.  I just like to tell them.  I started writing stories for my kids while on deployment so I could still be with them while I was away.

I self-published one of those stories to justify the expense of hiring an illustrator so that my son could have pictures to go with the story.  I found out that I enjoy the fiction publishing process and some other people enjoyed my words!

I wrote that first book purely for my kids, not thinking of publishing when I began.  At the time, we had one son and were waiting on our first daughter to be born.  I did not try to conform to genre expectations.  I think the book turned out nicely, free of grammatical errors, filled with a positive message and nicely illustrated, but it probably doesn’t fit reader expectations for an illustrated children’s book.  It’s too long for industry standards (3000 words versus 700-800), and I made little effort to write for a specific age range.  I wrote a book that my son likes and, coincidentally, so do some other kids his age.

My kids (four crazy superheroes) are older now, and so I have moved on to chapter books, and have been studying illustration for a while now, so I’m ready to carry that part of the project also.  I have found that I really love the illustration side of things also.

This time, rather than writing purely for my own kids, I am writing stories that will appeal to young adventurers everywhere while also introducing them to some of the discoveries that fascinate me the most.  I want to give parents and educators easy access to tools that will help them inspire their kids with wonder.

I want to light a fire in the imaginations of kids everywhere that will inspire them to be great people and discover great things about themselves, the world around us and the fantastic universe we’re all hurtling through aboard our pale blue dot.

I want them to learn to love our world and their neighbors, and work together to build a better world than we have given them.