Windermere Prep student gets first book published

The stories we read in books can take many dramatic twists and turns, from a mysterious villain being revealed to a character conquering impossible odds in a noble quest.

For one Windermere Preparatory School student, a plot twist in her own life in the form of a rare heart condition turned her life upside down, but it also led to a passion for creative writing – and she’s already a published author.

Emma Neary, 15, recently had her first book, “Broken Dreams: A Modern Twist of the Classic Cinderella Story,” get published by Theme Park Press and released to the public on Jan. 5. 

The finished product was the culmination of about six months of writing and a revision process, and tells the story of a classic Cinderella character who finds herself in the modern world, where she’s forced to deal with the challenges and rigors of high school.

“I really tried to make it my own,” Neary said. “I tried to see how would a fairy tale character really react in our world with our changing technology and how there’s all this drama in high school and all this bullying.” 

But the Windermere Prep sophomore wasn’t always an aspiring author. For 10 years up until the winter of 2014, Neary’s passion was performance and dance – she also played softball and basketball for a few years.

That all changed during a routine health checkup in the summer of 2014, when doctors found what they believed to be a murmur in Neary’s heart. She was taken to a pediatric cardiologist in Philadelphia and later diagnosed in December 2014 with hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy, which makes it harder for the heart to pump blood and thus it doesn’t flow correctly.

“It was devastating for us,” said Kevin, Neary’s father. “The worst thing in the world is having one of your children ill or sick. You want to protect them as much as you can. At that moment we knew our world was turned upside down.”

The condition forced Neary to quit dancing and playing sports.

“That was kind of hard for me, because now I was like ‘What do I do with my life?’” Neary said.

“I’m happy that another door opened….”

ONE DOOR CLOSES, ANOTHER OPENS

Neary’s father, already a published author, encouraged her to try creative writing. Neary was familiar with writing essays for school, but had never thought about becoming a writer.

The 15-year-old had always had a fascination with the character of Cinderella though, feeling a connection with the character since a young age thanks to her father’s bed time stories growing up. 

The wheels started turning for a unique take on the story, she said.

“As I thought about it more, I’m like ‘What if I made it more my own kind of story – made it more of something that wasn’t out there before,’” Neary said. “With help from some of the teachers, I was able to write a book, but I wasn’t expecting it to actually get published.”

Neary wrote up a story and sent it to Theme Park Press in May 2017. After a revision process, the book was accepted for publication by the company in the summer of 2017.

This was all done by Neary independently – even her parents had no idea, she said.

“The editor, who I knew, said ‘I was very impressed with your daughter’s book that she sent me,’” Kevin said. “It actually floored me. I was thinking to myself ‘What are you talking about?’”

“My wife and I could not be happier and prouder of Emma. We’ve always known that Emma was a great writer and had a great capacity for storytelling. Those together are the right ingredients to be a great author and a great writer. … She can overcome anything, just like her story.”

Neary is still feeling the excitement of getting her very first book published, but she also knows that her own journey as an author – her story – is just beginning. 

The performer has now become the author and playwright.

“Even if there’s something in the way of what you want to do … don’t let it stop you,” Neary said.

“Don’t let your gender stop you, don’t let other people’s thoughts stop you, don’t let anything stop you from doing what you want. Every human is capable of getting success if they just let themselves have it.”

Neary said she’s working on several more stories that she hopes to get published as well, including a historical fiction piece.