A Friend Request (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780692287651)

Award winning novelist, poet, and Iowa native, C. L. Gillmore lived most of her childhood in Muscatine, a small, picturesque town nestled along the banks of the Mississippi River. Her heartfelt poetry and detailed story lines often reflect her Midwest roots. "I weave the details of what I know best into my writing. I remember hot summer nights along the Mississippi, and crisp autumn mornings waiting for the school bus; small-town football games, Homecoming dances, and the smell of mum corsages; former teachers and students, friends and lovers; local bands, music, rock festivals, and drugs; campus riots, assassinations, and war protests. These day-to-day, remembered details, breathe life into a character, and lend credibility to setting and storyline." Gillmore retired after twenty-five years in education to pursue writing full time. She holds a Bachelor of Education degree in both Elementary and Special Education with graduate endorsements in Early Childhood Education and Learning Disabilities. "Writing has always been an important part of my life. My second grade teacher was a big influence," Gillmore says. "She was instructive and encouraging and made me love putting my thoughts on paper." In the past four years, Gillmore wrote and published two social media based romance novels, Uncommon Bond and A Friend Request-companion books about Rose and Jake, who marvel at the kind of love that only comes along twice in a modern lifetime: the first time in person, the second via technology-and Of Roots, Shoes and Rhymes, a poetry book and audio CD. Uncommon Bond won the 2012 New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards in Romance Fiction, was nominated for two 2012 Global eBook Awards: Best Romance Fiction Contemporary and Best eBook Trailer, and was a finalist in the romance category for the 2012 National Indie Excellence Awards. Of Roots Shoes and Rhymes won BOTH the Arizona Author's Association 2011 Literary Award for published non-fiction and the poetry category in the National Indie Excellence Awards for 2012. Gillmore and her husband live in Surprise, Arizona with French bulldog, Pitty Pat. Two married sons and six grandchildren live nearby.