A ninth-grade English teacher loved Shirley Rhodes’s imagination and short stories and encouraged her to continue to write.

After high school, she married the love of her life and settled down to raise a family.

Later, she pursued a different path, attending Middle Georgia College and graduating with a nursing degree. The thought of writing, though temporarily overshadowed, never truly faded.

She is the mother of two, grandmother of six, and great-grandmother of three.

After retiring from thirty two years in the ICU, she returned to the Flint River. Memories of the mysteries and serenity of those waters triggered her yearning to write again.