We are thrilled to welcome Ellen Smith to the Inkandescent® family and the editor of Inkandescent Kids magazine.

She earned her master’s degree in Early Childhood Special Education from The George Washington University in 2008. As a classroom teacher, homeschool tutor, and parent, Ellen loves empowering students of every age and diverse abilities. Ellen is also a freelance writer and fiction author.

Ellen has published four novels: Reluctant Cassandra (2015), Every Last Minute (2017), Any Second Chance (2020), and All Kinds of Time (2025). When she isn’t writing or teaching, Ellen can usually be found curled up with a cup of coffee and a good book!

Learn more about Ellen and her work: ellensmithwrites.com • Scroll down for our Q&A with this truly amazing woman!

---

Inkandescent Kids want to know!

Inkandescent Kids: What are some of your favorite books?

Ellen: Far too many to list, but I’ll give it a try! Bad Girl Creek by Jo-Ann Mapson, Me Before You by Jojo Moyes, Black Eyed Susans by Julia Heaberlin, Looking for Me by Beth Hoffman, The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton, and A Peach of a Pair by Kim Boykin.

Inkandescent Kids: What do you write as a freelance education writer?

Ellen: My specialties include curriculum development, academic writing, and developmental editing. Since my background is in special education, I love to create resources that adapt traditional methods of teaching and help students learn the same concepts in different ways. My goal is to help students, teachers, and parents feel excited and confident about learning!

Inkandescent Kids: What inspired you to write Reluctant Cassandra and Ghosts of Eagle Valley?

Ellen: When I wrote Reluctant Cassandra, I was imagining a character who could see glimpses of the future and was, in many ways, still stuck in the past. The main character, Arden, is an antiques dealer living in a small town devoted to historic preservation. She’s also coming to grips with her father’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis and the changes that lie ahead for her family. Throughout the book, Arden is learning to accept a future that she doesn’t want to see…and gathering the courage to make some changes of her own, too.

Although the setting of the book, Eagle Valley, Virginia, is fictional, it feels very real to me. I had so much fun imagining Eagle Valley that I wrote four ghost stories that take place at different points in the town’s history. Ghosts of Eagle Valley was released in October of 2015 as a series of short stories on Channillo for Charity. All proceeds from Ghosts of Eagle Valley go to benefit the Alzheimer’s Association.

Inkandescent Kids: What inspired you to write the Time Wrecker Trilogy?

Ellen: I was really interested in the idea of “fate” in romance. The first book, Every Last Minute, explored the lives of two newlyweds that had to make a harrowing decision. Would they go back in time to save each other from a tragic event that brought them together…even if it meant risking that they never met at all? After that, the second and third books continued to explore themes of time travel, fate, and justice. Now that the last book in the trilogy is published, I’m excited to move on to more writing and creative projects…like being the editor for Inkandescent Kids!

Stay tuned for more: ellensmithwrites.com