About Amanda
Amanda Helms does not perm her hair. Nor does she sleep with curlers. Her hair is naturally curly. It simply requires a bit of product to define the curls. That’s it. Yes, really.
Now that the matter of her coif is settled, let us move on.
Amanda received her Bachelor of Arts in English from Abilene Christian University in West Texas. Although she enjoyed her time there, she much prefers the mountains and again resides in her home state, Colorado, where she edits for an educational publishing company. In her free time, she writes contemporary fantasy, indulges in baking therapy, and tries to keep her activity up so that she may eat the results. She is a member of Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers and Pikes Peak Writers.
While at ACU, and in a departure from her current chosen genre, her story “Losing Joy” won first place in the 2003 Conference in Christianity and Literature Student Writing Contest. In 2004, her story “Insulation” placed second.
She fell in love with writing and fantasy at a young age, penning stories based unsubtly upon The Neverending Story at age nine. At ten she wrote a less fanciful story featuring her friends, which her teacher kindly allowed her to read to the class (granted, though, it was toward the end of the school year and her teacher might simply have wanted to kill time). By twelve, she knew she wanted to be a writer. Amanda is currently developing what she hopes will become her first published novel.