This Kennewick student already published a book — and she’s just 17

When she was in fourth-grade, a classmate gave Bailey Simpson all of the motivation she needed to write scary stories.

“It was honestly out of spite,” she said. “Someone said, ‘You can only write stories about little puppies in pink bows,’ and I went, ‘How dare you.’ I just fell in love with it and I’ve been writing ever since.”

She started writing, and kept writing.

She wrote a novel, got it edited and then penned a second one. She went to writer conferences and pitch sessions and, at 17, the Southridge High student’s first book is being published.

About 50 students, teachers and others gathered in the school library Wednesday to hear how her book The Amazing Imagination Machine came to be.

Simpson dedicated herself to learning about the publishing industry. She attended several Pacific Northwest Writer’s Association conferences and tried to get an agent before her fateful pitch session that connected her to Suspense Publishing.

She described the nerve wracking experience of giving her 30-second sales pitch to panels of potential publishers. Then the representatives from Suspense Publishing told her that it sounded good.

Three months later, she sent her 35,000-word manuscript about a boy named Jake who was stuck living with his uncle near an abandoned toy factory.

When he sees a creepy doll harassing his little sister, he chases it into the factory and through a machine that turns nightmares into deadly monsters.

“It’s been awesome. It’s been such a great experience of learning about this world, but it’s also been kind of stressful, especially when school has started and still trying to write and edit and do all the stuff I need,” she said.

Her mother, Carisa Simpson, is Southridge High’s music teacher, and her dad, Phillip, is the school’s band and symphony teacher. While the two musicians understand the commercial world around their art, they didn’t know anything about the publishing industry.

“The only way we could figure out to help her would be to have her go to these conferences and have her talk to other people that aren’t musicians,” said Carisa Simpson. “We, of course, will support her because that’s what parents do.”

Now, Bailey is working on her sequel to Jake’s story, but 10 years in the future. She’s anxiously waiting her first story’s release on Amazon under her pen name Bailey Day.

It’s being released as an electronic book Dec. 4 and available to order now for $3.99. If she gets enough pre-orders, it could turn into a print edition.

“I’d really like to hold my book in my hand,” she said.

It’s available through Amazon at bit.ly/AmazingImaginationMachine.