Barb Shirley’s New Career

Author and Corte Bella resident Barb Shirley proudly holding her two children’s books. A Corte Bella resident since 2006, Barb Shirley now finds herself a published author of two children’s books. In her professional life, Barb has been an accomplished model for multiple agencies in Chicago and New York City as well as working in commercials and promotions for a number of respected companies such as Conair and Harley Davidson. Barb’s last business venture was in marketing community services. While she had no formal training to be an author, her inspiration was watching her granddaughter Penni’s love of books. She was determined to write a children’s book that would impart more than just a simple tale. Important story elements would be a child, various animals, and of course the timeless tale of good versus evil. Her primary goal was create a story with a moral in the happy ending and to express the happiness of life. Her two published books, “Pelli the Big Blue Pelican” and “Good Day Sun”, are available through her publisher, Dorranace Publishing, through Amazon (also on Kindle) or at Barnes and Noble bookstore. Barb was fortunate that she found an illustrator through ASU to bring her stories to life. She is in the “thought” process stage at this time for her next project but she would like to stay with the rhyming venue like her “Good Day Sun” story, which is an answer to the children’s wellknown book “Good Night Moon”. One of her possible ideas is to do a modern day take on the comic books “Betty and Veronica” (Remember those two teen gals and their buddies Archie and Jughead?) Barb dedicated her first book to her husband, Mike Shirley (her biggest supporter) and to her granddaughter Penni, her inspiration to create Pelli. Corte Bella is proud of our accomplished author!