Author Turns Injury Setback into a Dream Come True (Press Release)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE.
Contact: Rebecca Loomis, info@rebeccaloomis.com, (315) 220-0828
Title: AUTHOR TURNS INJURY SETBACK INTO A DREAM COME TRUE
ROUND ROCK, TX, June 2018 – When designer and photographer Rebecca Loomis, 25, found herself indefinitely bedridden after a serious injury to her ankle, she took it as an opportunity to check something big off her bucket list: to write and publish a novel.
“It’s something I’ve always wanted to do, but found every excuse to put off,” said Loomis, who was doing stateside mission work with Saint Paul’s Outreach in Texas when a bad fall landed her in the hospital. After turning down a dream job offer and relocating to her hometown in New York, Loomis underwent multiple surgeries to repair the damage to her ankle. She didn’t return to Texas until April 2018, two years later.
During those two years, Loomis wrote, designed, and self-published her debut novel, A Whitewashed Tomb: a dystopian young adult fiction in which one woman’s only chance at finding her estranged father is to hunt him down for the corrupt authorities.
“A Whitewashed Tomb was my silver lining,” Loomis said. “Recovering from surgery has a way of making you feel utterly useless. Being dependent on other people to house you, feed you, even help you to the bathroom, is frustrating to say the least. Writing gave me an outlet to turn a two-year setback into a launching point to fulfill a dream I’ve had since I was eight years old, and that’s to write a novel.”
A Whitewashed Tomb follows the vengeful journey of Tabitha Clay, whose search for her estranged father leads her to a specialized institute for the upper class. While it seems picture-perfect on the outside, the school is run by a headmistress who will stop at nothing to maintain what she calls ‘peace.’ She recruits Tabitha to hunt down her father, who is a wanted felon, promising that if she does her dying mother will be brought back to health. With each sabotage and betrayal Tabitha performs at the headmistress’s request, however, Tabitha begins to wonder if payback is really worth the price.
“I was blown away by the positive feedback I got from my readers,” Loomis said. She is now in the process of writing a sequel and plans to produce many more books in the future. “There's nothing like kicking that horrid title ‘Aspiring Writer’ to the curb and getting to fawn over my own characters with other people who now know them too.”
In May 2018 A Whitewashed Tomb was named a finalist for the 2018 Next Generation Indie Book Awards in the Young Author (written by age 25) category. A Whitewashed Tomb is available for purchase on Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle formats. For more information, visit rebeccaloomis.com.
