Arthur, the Christmas Elf A Christmas Adventure

Born, raised and a resident in Illinois for most of her life, Valerie Connelly now lives with her husband, Michael, in Wisconsin. She divides her time between publishing, writing, teaching, painting landscapes and waterscapes, and traveling. An educator and international traveller since her days as a Peace Corps volunteer in Togo, West Africa in 1969, Valerie Connelly has been teaching French language and literature and inspiring the youth of Illinois since 1974. She holds a MA in French Literature from Northwestern University. In the 1980’s she founded the nonprofit organization, Overseas Alliance, to travel with her students in France to study art, history and architecture, live in French families, and to meet with her most famous friend, then French President Francois Mitterrand. Every year for five years, M. Mitterrand invited Ms. Connelly and her students to the Elysée Palace for the diplomatic celebrations after the parade down the Champs Elysée on July 14th. Ms. Connelly has also traveled and worked in other parts of the world. In addition to teaching ESL (English as a Second Language) for two years in West Africa, she wrote the English Language curriculum and helped set up a school in Iran in 1973, prior to the fall of the Shah. She has traveled extensively in Europe. And between teaching responsibilities, she researched and wrote about far-flung parts of the world as a copywriter for a major wholesale luxury tour operator. She also taught ESL at a local community college from 2001-2003. Life experience, travel, a love of French literature, a consuming habit of reading American and English literature, all came together to ignite the spark of her writing career. SACRED NIGHT is Valerie Connelly’s first novel. Her second novel, SIDETRACKS was released in May 2004. Both are available at www.nightengalepress.com She founded Nightengale Press in July of 2003 to publish her own books. But it wasn’t long before other aspiring authors came forward, asking for her help. By January of 2006 Nightengale Press has published more than 30 authors, with nearly 40 books among them, and several more coming through the process into print every month. Nightengale Press has evolved into Nightengale Media LLC offering its authors a first class website, bookstore, marketing opportunites and more.Connelly, Valerie is the author of 'Arthur, the Christmas Elf A Christmas Adventure', published 2000 under ISBN 9781933449234 and ISBN 1933449233.