Author and meditation tutor Shelley Wilson takes you on a magical journey to a calm and happy place that you and your child will love.
Children of all ages can learn and enjoy the benefits of meditation.
Designed to help access creative abilities through relaxation and imagination, these stories help develop the necessary tools needed at a young age for lifelong healthy habits of managing stress and anxiety while also improving learning skills.
Meditation for Children is a simple way to introduce children to mindfulness through guided visualization. Includes a handy reference guide and instructions.
Q&A
When did you know you wanted to be an author?
I’ve been an avid reader since I was about seven or eight years old, and with that obsession for books and stories came the inevitable pull towards writing my own. When my parents moved house a few years ago, they found a box in the loft that contained notebooks of my earliest work. My spelling was atrocious, and I’m reasonably sure my editor will confirm that my grammar hasn’t improved with time, but the stories were fully developed. The goal to be an author has stayed with me since then. I’ve worked in a variety of places and done a mix of roles including barmaid, conference and events manager, turkey plucker (yes, really!), and I ran a holistic spa for seven years, but now I write full time and am finally living my dream.
What inspired you to write this book?
Meditation is a massive part of my life and something that has helped me to achieve a calmer, more balanced existence. Back in 2011, when I had my holistic spa, I started running meditation classes. I wrote guided visualisations and talked the group through these ‘stories’ together with breathing exercises. I’m still running the classes today even though I had to close my spa three years ago due to an autoimmune disorder. One of the ladies who attended every week asked me to write a mini-meditation for her five-year-old daughter, Olivia. She desperately wanted to come along with her mum to our meditation classes, but it clashed with her bedtime! I wrote ‘Olivia’s Fairy Tree’ and delivered it to them both in a private session. Thanks to Olivia’s curiosity, I began to write other mini-meditations and collated them in this book. The handy guide at the front helps parents and teachers to work with children to create a positive meditation routine.
Where can I find you when you’re not reading/writing?
Stories play an essential role in my self-care. When I’m not reading or writing them, you’ll find me at the cinema getting lost in a visual escape from reality. I bought myself a Cineworld Unlimited card three years ago and take myself off to watch a movie at least once a week. Solo cinema trips are my favourite way to fill my creative well. If I’m not in row F with a bag of popcorn, then I’ll be travelling. My counsellor recently told me I have no grounding as I’m always on the move. It wasn’t a negative comment as I fully resonate with the statement ‘home is where I lay my hat’, and that can be anywhere from Bamburgh to Boston.
What are you up to next?
At the moment I’m enjoying sharing Meditation for Children with new readers, and introducing them to the joys and benefits of meditation. Next month I’ll be promoting my YA novel Hood Academy (a werewolf novel). Originally published as two novels, my publisher has re-released them under one title with a gorgeous new cover.
Back at my desk I’m working on a self-help title with a looming deadline (no, I’m not stressing – yet!), as well as plotting out a new YA series.
My publisher has given me tentative release dates for two other YA novels I’ve written, one a sword and sorcery novel (2020), and the other is something completely different, leaning more towards YA historical fiction (2021). I’m so excited about all my upcoming releases.
As well as writing my books, I also work as a mentor for small business owners who want to write a book or start blogging, and that’s keeping me busy at the moment.
Who is your biggest inspiration?
As a personal development blogger, I find inspiration everywhere. One of the features I run is called Real Women Real Lives where I get to share the inspirational stories, not of celebrities, but of the incredible women who live next door, work in your local shop, or help their community. Inspiring people surround us daily if we take the time to notice, listen, and engage.
When the women on my blog aren’t inspiring me, I turn to my amazing children. I’ve been a single mum for fifteen years after walking out of a violent marriage, and my kids inspire and motivate me to do better every single day. They are my ‘why’ to keep going, keep writing, and keep smiling.
Thank you, Shelley Wilson and Random Things Tours.
About the author
Shelley is an English author of motivational self-help titles and young adult fantasy fiction. Her sensible side writes non-fiction books to inspire and to motivate you to survive and thrive, and her cheeky and playful side writes young adult fiction to remind you to nurture that inner teen.
She blogs about writing and books on her author blog and talks about personal development on her motivational blog. Shelley is a single mum of three teenagers. She loves vampires, history and mythology, solo trips to the cinema, and travelling.
Social Media Links
Author blog – https://shelleywilsonauthor.com/
Motivational blog – https://motivatemenow.co.uk/
Twitter – https://www.twitter.com/ShelleyWilson72
Author FB – https://www.facebook.com/FantasyAuthorSLWilson/
Motivational FB – https://www.facebook.com/MotivateMeBlog/
Purchase Link
B for Bookreview 