Journey through love, loss, and healing with the heartwarming children’s book Here With You. Join Kellie Kaminskas, the author, as she shares her journey as a widow and how she found solace in writing a book to help children understand grief. Her son, who lost his father at a tender age, played a crucial role in the creation of this book. Together, they’ve found healing through the process, and their journey is sure to resonate with you. Kellie talks about self-publishing challenges, the need for support, and the positive response from readers who relate to her work. Let Kellie’s words inspire you as she shares her moving story of love, loss, and the power of storytelling.

Kellie’s book:

Title: Here With You

Publish Date: July 15 2024

Trade Paperback ISBN: 979-8-218-38222-3

Ebook ASIN: B0CW1JBSC2

Format: Trade Paperback and Digital

Available for purchase: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Powell’s, Apple Books, etc.

I am sharing my experience of loving the same man for 32 years, a mother to two adult children, a retired military officer, a breast cancer survivor, and my connections with others.

Anyone experiencing suicidal thoughts should reach out to a suicide hotline or local emergency number in their country: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/suicide/suicide-prevention-hotlines-resources-worldwide

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Here With You: Navigating Grief As A Family With Kellie Kaminskas

Welcome To The Widowhood

Our guest, Kellie, has written a book titled Here With You. It is about the journey of healing through grief. It helps children understand that although their loved one may be gone, they are still here with you. Kellie is a passionate storyteller hailing from the beautiful state of Connecticut. She has honed her skills in crafting captivating tales that transport readers to new and familiar worlds. As a loving mother to a wonderful son and their furry companions, she draws inspiration from the joys and challenges of parenthood. Her relatable story and heartfelt narrative resonate with readers of all ages. Kellie is an emerging author and speaker, available for virtual or in-person visits to schools, libraries, and events. Let’s get into this conversation. Kellie, welcome to the Widowhood.

Thank you so much for having me.

Thank you to the Widowhood. What comes to your mind when you hear, “Welcome to the Widowhood?” What was your first thought?

It’s been a journey. I’m about almost eight years into being a widow. Sometimes, the word feels like a four-letter one, depending on the mood.

I have heard this and I will repeat this. The club sucks, but the members are amazing. That concept of eight years, what does that look like eight years later for you? I want to preface it with the idea people go, “It’s been eight years. Haven’t you just?”

Yeah. I think I’ve really turned a corner, honestly, emotionally, for myself. I think I was angry for a very long time based on how he had passed away. I’ve been in the mode of self-care and a lot of forgiveness in the last year.

That says a lot. Thank you for sharing that. I don’t want to get into the details, but for someone who is just going to read this and they have just lost their husband this year, can you remember what that looked like for you?

Yeah. It was probably the worst time of my life. Honestly, at the same time, such a blur that you don’t really remember the first year. You’re surviving at that point.

That’s important to know because I am going into my eighth year, and people often see where I’m now mentally. I try my best to say, “This is not what ground zero looks like.” Please do not think that this is what I looked like when he left this world. If you were to talk to younger Kellie, what would you tell her based on what you’ve learned over these years?

To give myself so much more grace than I actually did. I think I just hit the ground running, and I was really hard on myself for a long time.

Those are some of the misinformation, about staying busy, being strong for other people, “This’ll be okay,” “Just let time pass.” I want to say that I found none of those were adequate or accurate at all. Grief had a little suitcase and she was like, “You got to stay busy? Let me get on. Let me come with you. When you’re tired and exhausted, I will open up the picnic basket, and we can get together.”

Let me put on a song for you that you don’t want to hear while you’re driving to go start your day.

Being a widow, and you have children too?

I do. I have a son.

How old was your son when his father left this world?

He had just turned one.

That puts a different dynamic to this than most people imagine. When they think of a widow, one, they’re thinking of someone older, and then the idea of someone younger with children. Have you found a community of other people who have younger children?

In the sense of raising him by myself? No.

Just a community with other women who are widowed with young children?

I don’t know anyone.

I have several people I can connect you with if you are interested. This journey has connected me. I know a widow who was actually pregnant when her husband passed. I have another widow who has seven children. She and her husband had a ministry, serving seven, and unfortunately, she’s one of several others. What area are you located in?

I’m in Connecticut.

Here With You

These people are virtual. I will reach out to them and connect you with them because I think community is very helpful. Your son was one. The basis of our conversation is really regarding this book. I knew talking about this book without talking about your journey wouldn’t serve anyone well because they want to know, “From what perspective would she write a book such as this?” I want to share, but I don’t want to share too much because I want you guys to get this book. What was the inspiration? It’s called Here With You. How did you come from this place of deep grief, and just in the fall, to write a book? What was that transition like for you?

For me, I needed to turn all of the pain into some type of power that I could control. As he was getting older, he had lots of questions. There’s really not a lot of books on grief for kids. Most of them are religious-based, and not everybody’s religious. I went to school to be a writer. It was my lifelong dream. This came to me one night when I was laying in bed with him. I literally wrote it in my notes on my phone. It just came from that. It’s hard to explain a person to a child who cannot remember them. He was one. He has very small memories of his dad. He doesn’t know him.

That is very clear. You mentioned that. How do you keep his dad’s memory alive? How does that work for you?

Any questions he has, I answer them. As he’s getting older, they’ve slowed down a little bit. I think the book has helped him a lot to really understand because he was so involved in the process with me. He helped to choose the illustrations. It is modeled after him. I think that was really healing for him. We’ve done a lot of therapy together and individually. I think he’s very in tune with his emotions at this age compared to when he was 3 and 4 and had major questions.

I want to read some of this, but I want to say this is not like adult reading. It doesn’t serve justice if you’re not looking at the pictures and able to just see this as it goes along. I should have thought about this ahead of time. The cover, Here With You, and the feather, how did that develop? How did that come about?

My mom actually passed away about a year before my husband did. I always find feathers in really random places. Someone told me, “That’s your mom. She’s sending you feathers,” like the weirdest spots. Even at work, I found a little teeny tiny one by the cash register. That’s one of the focal points of the book. You can find a feather on almost every page.

That’s a hide-and-seek kind of thing to find them. Are they obvious with the feathers?

They’re obvious, but it was still fun to just throw it in there.

Does your son wear glasses? How much of a resemblance is this?

He was. It’s identical to him.

That’s what I thought, but I just wanted to be certain. “Here With You, for Preston, my light in the dark.“ When you hear that, what does that mean to you? What should the reader think of?

My son, honestly, was just the biggest light that I needed through all of the darkness between losing my mom and then his dad passing away. I don’t know what I would have done without him.

It is amazing what children can do in our lives. First off, here, I’m going to read these pages, “I’m still here with you. I have not strayed. I’m sorry that I cannot stay. I will always show you the way. Even though I have left your side, I will do my best to send you signs of fluffy feathers from baby birds’ nests.” Are there really green boots like that, your husband and him?

My son’s waders on his fishing gear. He has those.

My late husband was much a fisherman. The outdoors, the hunting, the doing all of that. There is something so difficult about when you have to purge or go through their items and all of that. When I found his waders, my son was like, “I want those.” I was like, “You’ve never been fishing,” but I should say he’s not been fishing since his dad passed. Those items hold such big memories. I can see Preston looking at this book and just thinking of that. When you said it was healing, hearing the connectivity of that is something different altogether. To be trained to have been an author and now writing a book, how does that feel?

It’s crazy. I didn’t set out to write a children’s book first. I was more into poetry, which you can see throughout the book. I have a very rhyming pattern in the way I write, but life happens the way it does. It just did.

About life happening, do you think that your life is the same or different? People ask that question a lot, like, “Just get back to the life that you had.” What would you say to that question?

It wasn’t possible for me, just because I had two such huge life losses so close together while being a brand new mom. I had to find myself again.

What does finding yourself again look like? People use those terms, but do you remember some of those details of you walking that out and finding yourself?

I was depressed for so long. I think I woke up one day and I was like, “I can’t live like this anymore for myself or for my son.” At the same time, being a new mom, I think you really lose your identity a little bit just in motherhood because it was the first time I was doing it, and I didn’t have my mom there to guide me through it. I really just lost myself in that and in grief. I got really into opening up my creative outlet again, writing, and going to the gym, which has been such a huge help to me mentally. It keeps me sane.

I can relate to that. I like the idea of reopening creativity because you become a wife, a mother, and only have so much time. The things that fulfill you start becoming things on the back burner because we’re showing up for others. It rescues us when we remember, “I liked things before this happened, and those things nurture me. If I can find a way to return to those, they will serve me well.”

I can relate to that. I want to read everything, but I want to read this part because I know it is very relevant. “There are days where I feel mad. There are days when you are sad. Birthdays. There are days when you feel mad and days when you are sad. Birthdays, when there is one less chair, I promise you I’m still there.”

In the picture, I’m at a loss because this is just so hard. This is a conversation we’re having, but this is from a lived experience with your son on the birthday. I can’t imagine there’s not a parent that is dealing with a child when they are aching for their loved one to be there and it’s unreconcilable. How emotional was that for you when you were writing this?

It’s so hard. It’s weird that my son and I were both grieving the loss of a parent at the exact same time. I had 25 years with my mother. He had a year with his dad. His birthday and mine were two days apart. We celebrated our birthdays together, and I can’t imagine, as a kid, what it must feel like to not have a parent there because I know what it feels like as an adult to not have a parent here. My mother. I try so hard to think of what his feelings are, and I try to be so mindful of what that looks like for him.

I can relate to that. My children lost their dad in their early 20s. Mark passed in 2017. My dad passed in 2020, but I was 50 years old. That’s interesting because people often talk about the complexity of grieving in a family, that we’re missing different things. We may have experienced the loss of the same person, but the relationship we had with them is different. You mentioned how healing writing the book was for your son. What have been some other things that you’ve been able to help him with in his journey of grief?

I think a big part of it has also been to encourage his friends to understand what it looks like. Other kids, even if they have not experienced a personal loss, you don’t know what your friend has been through. In kindergarten, they were talking about families one day, and they were saying, “This about Dad, this.” He was like, “I don’t have a dad.” They were like, “What do you mean? Everybody has a dad.” These are 4- or 5-year-old kids. He’s like, “I don’t.”

That conversation, for me, he was very matter-of-fact about it because we openly talk about grief and death at home. A lot of people don’t. I understand why, but I think there’s an age-appropriate way to do it for this reason. You don’t ever want to think of a kid feeling left out, especially when it comes to such a big thing.

That is very true, especially as we have come through a world pandemic and other conflicts going on. I am finding that people are finding themselves widowed or widowed at an earlier age than societal norms. That conversation does need to be had. Did you and your husband ever speak about what life would look like in his absence? Sometimes, people make that a proactive part of the conversation and relationship.

We didn’t. We talked about things to happen if one of us was very sick or dying, like those types of things. I would never, no.

The actual living out of life afterward. When you look at this part of the book, what memories come to mind?

Just the happy ones. Honestly, I think there was a lot of darkness surrounding his death. It was really hard to pick through the end of time for the good ones. It’s been very important for me to always speak of him to my son in a positive light, even if I didn’t have positive experiences at the end with him. I don’t ever want to paint him as a bad guy to my son. That’s really important to me, raising a boy as a woman to become a man that’s going to be in the world and treating people the way they should be treated.

If I may ask another question, what particular birthdays or moments for your son in sadness does this recall to you, this portion of the book?

I think more so when he was younger, when he was like, “Who’s in my family?” I don’t have a big, huge family. I have one sibling, but I have my dad, and my sister is married. That’s it. It’s just us. He’s trying to really understand the dynamic of what family is. He’s very smart. He’s like, “Something looks off here.”

Children are just so raw and natural with conversations. There’s not a lot to tidy up. It’s like the facts just get laid out there. They’re just delivered. You’re like, “Okay, what do we do, Preston?” “They talked about having dads and I don’t.” Why is that? You can’t just fix it or deliver it. Those questions are harsh. I love the ever-present. Did you actually put the birthday hat on the chair and celebrate it that way?

One Christmas after my mom had died, I put out, she had cancer, and she had a favorite bandana that she wore, and I put it out on the table the first Christmas at the spot for her, and no one was allowed to sit in her chair.

I love that idea of honoring our loved ones, not to try to just push on like their absence isn’t real, but to honor and make it part of it. What are some other ways that you have honored their absence, your husband or your mother?

I just really try to talk about them. He references, like, “Oh, Dad,” or “Grammy Janet,” who was my mom, like he knew them. I feel sometimes people stop talking about a person once they die. I’m not like that. I’ve always made it a point to say, “Your dad did this,” or, “My mom did this.” I just think that’s so important. I think it makes a kid feel very involved. Yeah, it sucks that they died, but they’re still here. They’re not physically here, but their energy is still here. Their love is always still going to be here.

That seems to be the premise of the book. Even in the difficulties, their energy and the essence of them are still here, that you don’t have to feel alone. I was so glad to see that there was a fish involved after the waders in the beginning.

That’s great. I love it. My illustrators are so amazing.

Just the excitement. “I am here with you in everything that you do. When you learn to cast a reel and catch a fish or two, I am so lucky to love you.” You were saying you just wrote all of this down one night, but it came to you, and you just sketched it out on your phone.

Yeah.

How does it feel, seeing that sketch manifest and actually become something?

It’s wild. About almost a month since the book came out, and I was still like, it didn’t go away. It’s just so surreal. I’ve been doing a lot of book signings and stuff, and having people come up to me and literally be like, “Thank you. I needed this so bad, not only for my child but for myself, even as an adult,” has been so fulfilling and full circle for me.

You mentioned book signings. How would one contact you for a book signing and to schedule that?

It’s just my email. You can go to my website, and it’s on there. It’s just Kellie.Kaminskas@Yahoo.com.

If someone is thinking of embarking on writing a book, what are some lessons learned that you would share with them?

Find a publishing consultant or a group that you know is going to give you complete creative control over what you want to do. There are lots of people who want to cut corners and have you make them money. I had a very difficult situation with the first publisher, and I lost a lot of money because of it, which led me to find a company that helped me self-publish.

I created my own business and LLC, but they basically did the format and the heavy lifting stuff because I’ve never done this before. It was just such an amazing group of women that were so for other women, getting their stuff out there and really making my dream come true, but also educating me on all the business aspects of it, too. There’s so much involved in being a writer, especially with social media. You have to wear ten different hats. It’s definitely a journey, but just stick to it.

When you talk about the ten different hats and social media, so was this a self-publishing venture or what?

Yes.

If someone is looking for a publisher, are there some red flags, 2 or 3 different things, whatever you can think of that looking back reflection saying, “That was a red flag,” that you can share that may be beneficial for people?

I did a lot of research with the first person that I was with. She had all amazing reviews, and I had spoken to other authors she had worked with, and things were great, but I think her life imploded and everything seemed to snowball for every author she was working with. Definitely reach out to other authors if you can.

If you know who has published with them, you can self-publish or go the traditional route with sending in your manuscripts and stuff like that. It’s hard. It’s a vicious world of publishing. It’s not what it used to be. I was talking to an author the other day, and she’s been writing since the ‘90s, and even it changes every ten years. You just have to do your research and dig deep to see if this is something you really want to do.

I’m understanding you, the person you originally worked with, would have been fine. You probably would not have found the red flags. It was life that happened to them. That just was a ship that may work with them. That’s different than you were working with someone and then identifying some things that would not help, the habits that wouldn’t serve you. “I will be here with you when you are big and strong. My memory, you will carry on through the wind, the trees, and with bees.” When your son looks at this, what are the ways in which you see him carrying out his dad’s memory?

As he’s getting older, I can see certain mannerisms that he has of his, and I’m like, “Oh, there he is.” That you forget. After a long time, how they said, well, you start to forget someone’s voice or this and that. It’s like, you really do when a person’s not physically here, but I can see him as he’s getting older, and him, which is funny. It’s just genetics are wild.

Just the behavior. What items, if I may ask, have you maintained for your son to have as he gets older from his dad?

I kept a lot of his watches for him when he gets older and some fancy wallets that he had. He was very into fashion. Things like his wedding ring, I have for him and that kind of stuff.

His wedding ring. I never thought about that. I think about women handing down engagement rings to their daughters, but this is actually the wedding band for my husband, and I had it reshaped into hearts. That’s how I was able to keep those. I never thought about keeping it and passing it to our son. That is an idea for people to consider. Is there a favorite part of this book for you?

Honestly, it’s still hard to pick. I love the scene where there are all wildflowers in the background. My son is very outdoorsy. He loves to be outside. He actually goes to a school that is nature-based. It was important for me to get that aspect of his personality in the books.

I feel like you’ve done a really good job.

Thank you.

To hear people say, “Thank you, that they needed it for their child, but they also needed it for themselves,” did you ever think about somebody needing it for themselves?

No, I just really thought it was for kids. The more I talk to people, the more I hear like, “I just really, this is a family book. It’s not just for kids.” I’ve had people be like, “I’m buying this for my great uncle who just lost his wife,” because it is light. At the same time, it’s getting the impact that it needs to be getting.

This is a hard conversation, and you would think, as much of it as an inevitable reality, that we would be better at having this conversation, but we are not. Has this book created avenues for you to speak with people? Do you do public speaking, or how does that look for you?

I’m going to be starting. I’ve been working with a couple of substance abuse prevention programs. I’m going to be speaking at a gala and at some retreats that they’re having.

When people lose a loved one, oftentimes people, you mentioned that they begin to make purpose out of this. Did you start that concept off in the beginning, or was it just trying to survive the reality of this?

Yeah, I was just trying to survive.

I think that’s important to know. I know this is hard, but I’m going to have purpose, and I’m like, “I just want to fall apart.”

It took a long time to get there. As you said, when you’re in the ground zero of it, you don’t feel like that. You don’t.

You really want to be able to. I’m going to read this last section, “Finishing Derby. On the days you win and on the days you lose, I will be there too. We have a fishing Derby and a trophy.” When you see that, what memories come to mind for you?

I think kids try to overcompensate for adults grieving. Sometimes, they’re so in tune with a parent’s emotions. For my son, he always wants to portray, “I’m happy all the time.” For him, I’m like, “That’s okay, but do not feel happy all of the time.” We’re going to have highs, and we’re going to have lows. It’s so important to identify all of the emotions that we could have, not just the positive ones. I think that was my focus right there. No matter how we’re feeling, we’re still going to be able to ground ourselves and have that person here for us in our hearts, even though they’re not physically here.

That makes a lot of sense. Were there points where you hid your grief from your son?

Yeah. At first, he was so young, and in his toddler years, I didn’t want to cry in front of him because kids get scared of their mom crying, and I’m okay. Now, I’ll cry in front of him, and he comforts me, and he knows that it’s okay for him to cry, too. He got in that phase last year of, “Boys don’t cry.” I’m like, “We’re going to talk about that. Yeah, they do.” It’s so important to me to raise and guide him so that he can express any emotion without feeling like, “Men don’t do this, and boys don’t do that.” It’s being raised by a woman. I’m going to show you. Yes, I can.

Managing Grief With Children

That is true. There are some things, misinformation, that need to be changed and have a narrative that’s going to be healthy. A person you met is struggling with just managing grief with their children. From your lived experience, what guidance would you give them?

If they are open to doing family therapy, I would recommend it 110%. It has helped us so much, even in our day-to-day lives with little things. If we’re butting heads or we’re annoyed with each other, if we’re able to sit down once a week with our therapist, both together and apart, it’s so helpful for us just being able to say, “I feel like this today, and this is why. What’s the solution here? Is there a solution? No.” Sometimes, we’re just in a bad mood. That’s just how the day is going to be. It honestly has made us so close, and we just are able to talk about anything together. I’m not scared to ever tell him if he’s doing something that’s bothering me. It’s the same avenue for him. If I’m making him mad, he’s telling me.

That’s a very articulate young man to be able to convey his feelings that way and be able to express that. You mentioned something that I hear people struggle with a lot, the difference between if this is a grief moment or if this is just a child being a child. How have you learned, and if possible, to even differentiate between those two? How do you narrow that down?

I feel like he’s rarely ever in a funk, but when he is, I’ve said to him, like, I let him do his thing. If he needs to be by himself and cry, I’ll say, “Are you feeling sad about Dad?” Usually, that’s where it is. I think something will trigger him at school. Someone will say something, and he doesn’t like to feel different from other people. I think certain little things like that trigger him. Being able to have access to therapy and all these emotion words that we can talk about has been really helpful for him as he’s gotten older. I think that’s kind of diminished those feelings a little bit. He’s able to express when he’s feeling like that.

Feeling Isolated During Grief

Thank you. I’m going to read the back of the book because that’s public knowledge, and that may be on a preview somewhere, “If your loved one has passed on, close your eyes and listen to your heart song. I am here with you where the wildflowers grow or whichever road you go, you are never alone.” Have you felt isolated in this brief journey?

Yes and no. It just depends on the day. I think sometimes, I got married pretty young for my generation. I’m a millennial. I was 23 when I got married, and we bought our first condo, and we worked really hard to get there. I think I was the first out of all my friends to get married and have a child. It was definitely a weird situation when all of a sudden, here I was at 27, and I had a dead husband and a newborn, basically an infant. No one really got it. It was hard to explain that to someone because if they’ve never lived it, then how could they even? I don’t even want them to imagine it because it sucks.

Has your friendship changed? Did friends remain, or did you lose friends? How did that work for you?

I’ve had pretty much the same friends that I’ve had my whole life. I think as you get older, friendships do change like any other relationship. There were definitely some friends that I did lose, and that’s okay. Sometimes friendships just run their course, I think. They’re in that season of your life for a reason, and then they’re not, and that’s okay. I definitely have changed relationships and friendships.

I noticed that a lot of people say that in the loss of their spouses, some friends have the emotional bandwidth or capacity, and they don’t know how to show up. Being that you’ve experienced this, if someone’s listening to this conversation and they have a friend who is going through grief because their spouse has passed, any recommendations you would give them about how to show up or what would be beneficial?

Sometimes, I think you don’t really need to say anything. I think presence is the biggest thing that anybody needs, no matter what situation it is. Sometimes, people just want to sit and not talk. Just to know someone’s physically there means so much.

Maintaining Identity After Loss

I would agree with that. I have asked you several questions. Any questions you possibly have for me?

As time goes on, do you feel like how do you not make it your identity? Talking about losing a spouse, how do you keep the boundary there? I’m talking about this because I want to educate others. It’s not all I am.

This is not all that I am. Widowhood Real Talk with Tina is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit. I have a full-time job as a project manager. My children are adults. My daughter is engaged. I talk to my daughter. She lives in California, but you would think she lives around the corner. I talk to her 2 to 3 times a day easily.

I have remarried. My mom and sister live next door. My faith, going to church, relationships, friendships, and other things are who I am as a person. This is a part of who I am. Being Mark’s widow, even though I have remarried, is a part of who I am forever. There’s no way of separating those two. I know I cannot make somebody’s situation different. The space that I spend with them and what I do, that impact I know is real.

What I’ve learned in this process, we all have to work out our own individual grief journey. We will get possible encouragement or different insight from other people, but it does become an individual journey that we have to go through because our grief is unique to us and the person which we have lost. That part is necessary. I know that I’ve done what I’m supposed to do in the space that people give me, but this is not all-encompassing of my life and what I’m doing. Sometimes it can be.

We just finished a Walk for Love, an annual event walkathon, and seven days of posting, seven days of doing everything. It also was a fundraiser, so I’m glad we met our goals. I’m excited about the grief garden and butterfly release ceremony we’re going to do with the funds that we raised. What Mark’s death has shown me more than anything else is that life is precious. Life, we don’t know the end date of this for any of us. I need to live the moments I have. That made me realize that I need to be present when I’m in situations and be able to enjoy life. We have covered quite a bit. Did we cover everything you wanted to discuss in this conversation? If not, please let me know if we didn’t cover everything.

Yeah, absolutely.

Closing Thoughts

Thank you, Kellie, for being here with me. Thank you for being a part of the widowhood. Sorry, but thank you for this book, which I know will be a treasure to so many people. Where can they find your book?

It’s on Amazon.com and BarnesAndNoble.com.

Thank you. What social media platforms can people find you on, Kellie?

I’m mostly on Instagram. It’s just my name, @Kellie.Kaminskas.

Kellie, thank you so much for writing this book. I want to allow you to close out this conversation with the audience.

I think the best thing I could say is if you are going through a grief journey or you’re new to it, to just remember that it’s not always going to feel so heavy all the time. Sometimes, grief is going to feel like a boulder sitting on your chest. Sometimes, it’s going to feel like it’s just a little pebble in your pocket. I promise that you’re going to be okay. Even if every day you don’t feel it, you are going to be each day a little more and more.

Thank you for those wise words. I can definitely agree with that. You have a good day.

Important Links

• Kellie Kaminskas
• Here With You
• Kellie.Kaminskas@Yahoo.com
• Amazon
• Barnes And Noble
• @Kellie.Kaminskas – Instagram
• Kellie Kaminskas – Facebook

About Kellie Kaminskas

Kellie Kaminskas is a passionate storyteller hailing from the beautiful state of Connecticut. From earning her BA with a focus in Creative Writing and English Literature obtained at UMASS Amherst UWW, Kellie has honed her skills in crafting captivating tales that transport readers to new or familiar worlds. As a loving mother to a wonderful son and their furry companions, she draws inspiration from the joys and challenges of parenthood. Her relatable story and heartfelt narratives resonate with readers of all ages. Kellie is an emerging author and speaker, available for virtual or in-person visits to schools, libraries, and events.