Diane Keech grew up in the village of Cobleskill, New York, the model for Ellie’s Foersterville. She moved to the West coast in her early twenties and has lived there ever since.

Diane started writing Ellie’s Great War back in the 1980s, but put it aside for three decades because of the distractions of family, work, furthering her education — and finally a 20,000-mile sailing adventure with her husband aboard their own boat.

In her seventies she moved into a retirement community in Oakland, California, where she was able to return to Ellie’s story at last. There she found comrades who had similar creative urges; together they formed a writing group that proved an inspiration to her, boosting each other’s efforts, giving each other models of honest writing, and providing each other with the chance to read aloud to a receptive audience. Diane is forever grateful to them.

Ellie’s Great War is Diane’s first novel.