About Me

I'm going to start from the beginning.

I was born at 1:11 PM, on August 23rd of 1994 by C Section, to Betty and Steve Reis, in Aurora, IL. I have an older sister named Maria, who was born exactly 2 years and 51 weeks before me.

My parents got divorced when I was two. I don't remember it very well, but I do know that, although I had already learned how to talk, I went mute for about a year. I developed a speech impediment because of that. My mother, sister, and I moved in with my grandparents and they had a house built for us in a new neighborhood that was being built.

In preschool, I was given help for speech, physical problems, and something else that I can't remember. I remember the mascot being a squirrel, and I loved it!

Elementary school...I went to two elementary schools, McCarty(Mustangs) and White Eagle(Wolves)

I was always crushing on someone from preschool to third grade. I can't remember exactly who any of them were, but I remember getting in trouble for blowing a kiss to a boy, and I remember asking one of my crushes if they had died when he told me about a supposed near-death experience he had when he ate Styrofoam. I wasn't the brightest child.

I saw my dad, for the first time since the divorce, when I was seven. I had made myself positive that he was going to be a handsome, rich, man who had been very busy and had just gotten back in the area. I imagined that he'd drive a red, sleek, convertible and that he was cute, and nice, and that he would love me and come back into our lives and it'd be perfect. And to be honest, he was none of that. I was disappointed in him because he was nothing like I had imagined, but I still gave him a chance.

My family and I moved out of the house that we shared with my grandparents when I was eight. I finished off third grade at McCarty and started fourth at White Eagle. I never really crushed on anyone at White Eagle. Well, no one but celebrities. 

I hated reading throughout elementary school and part of middle. I truly despised it. I actually cried once, in second grade, when I was told to read out loud in a small group. Seriously, I was a completely different person back then. I hated reading, and I really wanted to fit in with the popular crowd.

Middle school...I went to Scullen(Sharks)

I made great friends during middle school. Katie introduced me to Kait, and I started hanging out with an old elementary school friend again, named Hannah, and these are just a few of the friends I loved in middle school.

I fell in love with reading in seventh grade. They had this special program to make kids read, where we had to read 20 minutes during school on Tuesdays, and I borrowed a book from Kait. I didn't think I'd like it, just because I assumed all books(except Ghost of Fossil Glen. That was one of the only books I read in elementary school) were bad. The book, East by Edith Pattou, turned out to be amazing, and I borrowed it from the library after Kait finished with it. It took a while to read, since it was pretty large compared to the books I had been willing to read before, but it was great. After that, I was all about reading. Kait pointed me towards good books for most of that year.

My first book obsession was Warriors, by Erin Hunter. That series is great. At the time, they were in the middle of the second series, and I caught up in no time. I started reading them because I discovered that Mom had bought me the first book before I liked reading, because I thought the cat was cute and promised to read it(which I didn't do, until then), and because Hannah had walked passed a couple of friends and I at lunch and told us that they were great. I started collecting the Warriors books, and I realized that I'd rather buy books than borrow them from the library, because then I can always go back any time and pick it up again to read a random part. 

The Spring of seventh grade, Katie lent me Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. I didn't even look at it again until almost the beginning of eight grade year, but when I DID look at it, I stayed up all night reading it, and I thought it was fantastic(for those of you screaming, 'NOOOO!', I do realize that the grammar isn't that good, but I honestly couldn't care less about grammar at that point). I became obsessed with Twilight.

The summer before eighth grade, a new neighbor moved in a few houses down. Rosa, her husband Jim, and her daughter, Angela moved in. Angela was quite a few years younger than me, but we had an immediate connection. I was her friend and babysitter, and every once in a while I'll pop my head in and say hi to them.

I started writing at the beginning of eighth grade. I wrote Twilight fanfiction, and a lot of it. Most of it really sucked, but I keep them around because I can see my own personal growth as an author through that. I also wrote a horrible Warriors fanfiction. I had an idea early in the year about a girl in a garage, and that story soon grew into something similar to 'Watching Over Me.'

High school... I went to Neuqua Valley (Wildcats) and Metea Valley (Mustangs)


My freshman year, I met Kay. We both had an obsession with twilight and both adored writing. We're basically twins. She is one of the people who kept me writing when my characters were making me mad.


I wrote the first draft of Watching Over Me during March of freshman year. I wrote the entire thing in one month, and it sucked. I used that version to help me develop the plot more, and then I trashed it completely. I rewrote it, and then rewrote it again, and again, and again. I believe I edited it well over 5 times.

After Freshman year, my family and I moved back into the house we had shared with my grandparents, before. That was the same year that Metea Valley opened. I admit, when I found out I was going to be a mustang again, I felt a little sad. I remember voting on the mascot, and one of the options was Wombat. How cool would it have been to be a wombat?

At Metea, I met loads of amazing people. I've lost friends, but I've also gained some. Lizzie B. and Lizzy A., Melissa, Tanisha, Janelle...so many awesome people.

Kait helped me plot and write Watching Over Me. She edited it about as many times as I did, and she was there every step of the way. She also found the website that I used to self publish Watching Over Me, but I didn't try to self publish it until a little over a year after she found it.

On July 23rd of 2011, I self published Watching Over Me.

Over the past year, I've had thousands of amazing experiences. I've met people who knew about my book, I've had very kind reviews on the book, and had my book put in Metea's school library thanks to Melissa. Mrs. Stoller, Mrs. Turner, Mrs. Nagy, and Mrs. Wolverton are all amazing! They even agreed to letting me have a book talk in the library!

Amazing non-book experiences since July 2011, to May 2012 I've made friends with some amazing writers. I enjoy writing stories and illustrating via The Sims 3 (video game) and I'm proud to know many other, great, people who do so as well. Although, sometimes I want to scream at them when they leave me with a cliffhanger! (You know who you are!)

Also, I recently went on Operation Snowball. I had wanted to do it for a long time, but the last one is the only one I went on. I loved it! Small group 9 was the best! (You all know I love you...although I don't think I actually ever told you that I got a book published, during the weekend...)