Woman publishes fiction novel

Published 8:20 pm Saturday, March 12, 2016

Gwendolyn Campbell has always loved writing, but until the death of her biggest fan, her writing was just a hobby.

A year after her son’s murder, his killer has just been convicted and Campbell’s first book, “Broken Hearted,” has been published.

“He would read the things I had here at home, and he said ‘You need to put that out there,’” Campbell said. “That just gave me the motivation. I’ve got all this writing — I’ve got to get it out there. He’s the reason why.”

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Campbell enjoyed all kinds of writing in school but didn’t really start writing until 2006. A year later, she had finished “Broken Hearted.” Since then, she has written four more books and is in the process of sending her second one to get published. Campbell’s son, 31-year-old Timothy Green, was killed in April 2015, and in May she sent her first book to Page Publishing in New York.

Campbell said her fiction novel is a reflection of what she has heard, seen and experienced in her life. The setting is different areas in Mississippi and is about “love, drugs, sex, money and murder.”

“Throughout your life you hear a lot of things, you see a lot of things through friends, family, the news and life itself about how things really are,” Campbell said about the inspiration for elements of the book.

Campbell said she gets a lot of requests for books, and the reactions from those who read it are encouraging. When they find out the second book will be a continuation of sorts, they encourage her to make it available.

“They’ll say ‘We’re waiting on part two; we’re waiting on it’,” Campbell said. “It gets me energized. I didn’t think it would go this far, I just prayed that I would step out on faith and try it.”

Campbell has four other books she plans to publish: one is another fiction, one is about her faith, one is a children’s book and the last is a book of poetry.

Campbell said the book is available in a wide variety of forms and places. They are sold online through Ingram’s Catalogue, Amazon; available for digital download through Google EBook, Amazon’s Kindle, the iTunes store for iPhone and iPad. Physical copies are sold by Campbell through email or text and by Barnes and Noble and Books-A-Million.