GODFREY - She had been working on it since she was a freshman in high school, she wrote three or four editions, and last month, she published it on Amazon. 

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Kelsey Schulz, 23, placed her book, Witchhunter: Realm of the Isles, on Amazon. It can be downloaded through Kindles for $2.99 or purchased as a paperback for $9.99. Schulz utilized Amazon's Create Space for the paperback copy. Through that, Amazon is able to create books as orders are placed to fill them. Schulz said she turned to Amazon after a handful of queries to literary agents and publishers went unanswered. 

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"I did not get the responses I wanted to move the book forward, so I decided to go through Amazon and publish through Kindles," Schulz said. "After I found Create Space, an Amazon-owned website, I was able to publish a print copy. They publish as people order it. It allowed me to do it that way for people who want it in print." 

Witchhunter: Realm of the Isles is a suspense-filled fantasy thriller, where things are not what they seem for 19-year-old Aria, the main character in the story. Schulz said the heroine in her novel lives in a small town and "shut down" after losing her parents in a car accident. Her brother helps her cope through the trauma, and together they discover their parents' death was not the accident it first seemed. 

"They discover they are from a different world," Schulz said. "Aria discovers she and her friends have special abilities. Eventually, they make their way into that other realm and put themselves in a war that was waging before they were born." 

Schulz attended Alton High School, and graduated in 2012. She wrote throughout high school, and continued her education to Lewis and Clark Community College. She attained her associate's degree within a year, and went to Benedictine University in Springfield for her bachelor's degree in writing and publishing. 

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