Young Kingfield author releases first book

KINGFIELD – When a child, Annie Twitchell became frustrated with the job of interpreting her grandmother’s letters, all written in cursive and decided to teach herself the skill. The five-year-old taught herself to not only read her grandmother’s lengthy, elegant letters, but to also respond using the antique technique.

Twitchell’s motivation to write, though now mostly on a keyboard, has only grown since the letters with her grandma. The young author knocks off thousands of words each month- 250,000 since January to be exact. Between blog posts, computer articles for her family’s business, and the 15 books she is working on, Twitchell has her hands full.

“It’s what I do,” she said.

Her most recent collection of words can be found in her first published novel, “Spinner of Secrets.” The story is based on a retelling of “Rumpelstiltskin,” inspired by a prompt from one of Twitchell’s many online writing communities. The online forums offer the support and feedback Twitchell needs when living in a rural community. The prompt was to create a retelling of a fairy tale using a castle, an outlaw and a rose- many contributors chose “Beauty and the Beast,” but Twitchell decided to do something different.

“I’m obsessed with fairy tales,” she said.

The home school graduate recalled the bi-weekly field trips she and her mother would take to the Bangor Public Library, which housed a 20-foot section dedicated to her favorite genre.

“We would fill suitcases with more than 200 books,” she said. “One time a new staff member told us that part of her training was to ‘check out the Twitchells.'”

The fond memory lead Twitchell to dedicate her first publication to the library, which shaped so much of her writing style.

Homeschooling allowed Twitchell to not only have access to resources across the state, but to also mold her learning around her strongest interests, which of course always included writing. In addition, the supportive and flexible educational environment helped Twitchell become a confident learner despite her struggles with dyslexia.

“It makes my writing pretty interesting. I have had to learn to give myself space to mess up. I have a no backspace rule, which I had to train myself to do. If I were to always go back and fix typos I would never get anywhere,” Twitchell said.

Twitchell recently visited several schools in Regional School Unit 74 to talk about her process, and about “Spinner of Secrets.” She stressed to the students that the important part is the story, not the grammar or the structure.

“The story,” she told students “is the only thing you can do. Anyone can edit.”

“Spinner of Secrets” can be found on Amazon here. To read more about Twitchell visit her blog here.