Today, we’d like to introduce you to Corine Channell. Corine was introduced to us by the brilliant and talented Keira Healy.
Corine, thank you so much for joining us today. We’d love for you to bring our readers up to speed – can you introduce yourself and share your story?
I have worn many hats in my life – teacher, singer, songwriter, filmmaker, office manager, wife, mother, grandmother – and now I have added to that life list – author. I started out writing poetry as a teenager, then when I was a music teacher I wrote programs for my classes to perform. As the years flew by writing was always the thing I was pulled to the most – to express my thoughts on paper. After raising my family and becoming a widowed empty nester, I found myself free-falling into journaling which then turned into blogs for an international media network. After writing for them for a few years, it seemed my blogs were becoming books. I didn’t plan for that – it just happened. During COVID lockdown I felt like I had chunks of time available to do what I loved most, and with no distractions. so I wrote a book in 2020. Then I wrote another one in 2021, and here we are in 2024 and I just completed my 4th book. I blogged about real-life struggles and issues, the pains of trauma and abuse, the secrets we keep that are so destructive, and in doing so I unintentionally began to tell my own story. In my writing, I found self-awareness, self-healing, and a great purpose. I am a conceptual writer/ a storyteller / and I use a lot of allegory- I try to write so that the reader can find themselves in between the lines, thus uncovering and discovering the purpose in their pain and the value of their own story.
So today in 2024 I am a blogger, a self-published author of 4 books with GateKeeper Press (“Beyond The Bolted Door” book series), a filmmaker with JackMorgan Productions (“Shattered Silence”), and a songwriter with ASCAP Publishers – all accomplished after the age of 55. It is never too late to be what you were meant to be. For me going forward? You can find me writing.
Let’s talk about your work and career – what else should we know?
In the short version, what sets me apart from others is probably my age. I am 67. I never knew at age 55 I would help produce a full-length documentary on suicide prevention that would be seen internationally. I never knew that at age 63 I would become a self-published author. I never knew that at age 67 I would become a published song writer. I didn’t plan for any of this, and mostly I didn’t plan for being widowed and alone at this point in life. I have been able to take the pains and traumas of my life, along with the joys and sorrows, failures and successes, and turn them into something worthwhile and useful in my later years. Can I just say that I live to write, and I write to live. It is my soul’s safe place. I love that Keira Healy has found such great purpose in her teen years, and I marvel at how much she will be able to accomplish that I did not until so much later. Isn’t this what it is all about? Legacy? Passing the torch? I hope to do that with, and for Keira, as well as to remind those in MY age group that it is never too late until it is. If you are alive and breathing, there is something you can still do. I value every moment I get to breathe – I understand the power of still being here – and I will keep going until my last breath.
Keira Healy has been a great friend to us and I know you’ve got a great relationship as well. Maybe you can tell our audience a bit about Keira and your experience with them.
I have known Keira Healy since she was born, and on through the years of her growing up, We baked dozens of cookies for homeless people at the ripe old age of 3. As I marveled at her giving heart coupled with her organizational skills I knew I had have been privileged to have given a front-row seat to the journey of a young entrepreneur. I joked back then that someday she could run a small country!
I became a self-published author in 2020, and have written a book every year since. I brought Keira into my author journey because she had been fine-tuning a newly budding interest in digital art and website production, stickers and labels, and all things requested OF her, by me. I did a “book run across America” – sending a signed copy of my books to 50 libraries – one in each state. I asked her to help me because I needed her organizational skills and creativity to implement my idea, and she is a fiercely hard worker. She made customized mailing labels for me and packed and shipped my books to all 50 states. It was so much fun and she completed the task expertly. From there, I asked her to be part of the book journey internally – she wrote a foreword to my 4th book, which is for teenagers, so she reviewed my writing to do this. She provided customized illustrations inside of my book. Her completed work is always on point and exactly what I request. She is a great communicator who keeps in touch faithfully while working on whatever project I have her involved in. All along the way when I need help of any kind I can depend on her. She is a creator, an influencer, an entrepreneur, and a 14-year-old digital artist whiz kid.
I would highly recommend KAH Designs to anyone who thinks outside the box and would like a memory captured in the unique digital art that she creates. You have to see her work to understand what I mean by that. She did a picture of me and my late husband, and it will always be a one-of-a-kind treasure that I couldn’t/wouldn’t find anywhere else. In every completed design you will get her skill, her talent, her creativity and imagination, her hard work, her uniqueness – and, her heart. Her heart is the seal of her excellence,
Website: https://linktr.ee/Corinechannell
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/corinechannell/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/beyondthebolteddoor
Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@corine.channell
