A Vincent High School junior is a published author thanks to a submission in the first annual Books-A-Million Publishing Contest.

Melia Burrell entered the contest last spring but wasn’t selected as one of the top three winners.  However, she was later notified that Books-A-Million still wanted to publish her book – The Chronicles of the Secret Society: The End of the Standoff.

Joyce McKinnon, Espresso Book Machine Coordinator for Books-A-Million, said the judges enjoyed reading Burrell’s book so much, they decided to offer her a runner-up award of a Masterpiece Publishing Package. The book was recently published, assigned an ISBN, and registered with the Books In Print database. A published copy of the book was provided for the Vincent Middle High School Library.

The book is available for purchase at the Brookwood Village Books-A-Million and online at Booksamillion.com: http://tinyurl.com/onuk9dq.   The royalties from Burrell’s book sales will go to Vincent Middle High Library.

“It was an ecstatic and terrifying experience at the same time,” said Murrell. “I was beyond elated by my work being selected for publishing but terrified to know that something personal to me was going to placed in the public eye.”

“It was a lot of hard work, but the results were very rewarding,” she continued. “When you are doing something you love and enjoy, it usually comes easy.”