Cissy Hassell was born and raised on a forty-eight acre farm near the small town of Gassaway, West Virginia, the youngest of fifteen children, to parents of his, hers and theirs, a total of 14 siblings. Growing up in the hills of West Virginia taught her a lot about what home and family values really meant. Although, her family was extremely poor and lived off the land, they were rich in the way that really counts.
At the age of six, she was introduced to the written word and began absorbing them like a sponge. At the end of her first school year, she had read every book in the first grade library. From that day forward, she read everything she could get her hands on. Her claim to fame in the early years is eraser tag champion in the second grade and the girls’ spelling bee champion in the seventh. She began writing at the age of fourteen and has “dabbled” ever since.
In 1970, she hopped a greyhound bus with three small children-all under the age of five and came to Florida. After a few years, she met a man as stubborn as she was and one that wouldn’t take no for an answer. She married that man and expanded the family by two. The mother of five, she lives in Gainesville, Florida with her husband, Terry, still her knight in shining armor after 34 years and their dog, Cujo.
She has a herd of pygmy goats, and one Nubian, loves genealogy and dabbles in it whenever she gets the chance and is able to trace her family tree back several generations.
Her greatest enjoyment, besides writing, is riding her Harley. She and her husband heat up the roadways when they can.
She is happiest when writing or lost in a book filled with words and magic that under certain circumstances could become true in a different time or place. She enjoys different genres and is still an avid reader of just about everything and claims the only thing better than reading a good book is writing one.
