: About Me

I'm Shelley Seale, a professional freelance writer based out of Austin, Texas. My areas of writing specialty include cultural issues, travel, the arts, women & children, nonprofit and social activism, real estate (commercial & residential), relocation, architecture, entrepreneurship, business and interior design. My degree is in Writing and Cultural Psychology from St. Edward's University.

I have been a regular contributing writer to the Good Life Magazine, Andrew Harper Traveler Magazine, OutFront Magazine, and the Austin Business Journal among others. My work has also been published in Austin Monthly, Texas School Business Magazine, San Antonio Express-News, Austin Woman, InfoChange India, the Austin American-Statesman, Advance for Nurses, Dance Spirit and more.

I recently completed a narrative non-fiction book: The Weight of Silence: Invisible Children of India. It tells the stories of some of the 25 million children living without parents in India, on the streets or in orphanages; and the inspiring people who are helping to uphold their rights, one child at a time. Go to http://weightofsilence.wordpress.com, where you can read an excerpt from the book, articles and news about the subject, & much more!

My passion is ...

writing, travel, and social/cultural issues. Oh, and chocolate!

I know too much about ...

how to get dog hair off my clothes.

My parents always told me ...

to do and be whatever I wanted.

My childhood ambition ...

was to be a writer!

My favorite memory ...

is sitting in the prayer room in Orissa, India listening to a hundred beautiful children singing around me.

Why I write ...

because I have to. I love to read, I love stories of all kinds. It feeds the soul.

What I am reading/watching/listening to ...

the election coverage news right now!

My first job ...

was working at a snow cone stand.

My best moment ...

giving birth to my daughter.

My inspiration ...

the great writers: Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Arundhati Roy, Steinbeck, Khaled Hosseini

Health & Fitness > HIV / AIDS Challenges faced by women living with HIV/AIDS in India

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You are an elderly woman living on a meager sustenance, on the outskirts of a town called Vijayawada. Your name is Durgamma. Your home is a tiny two-room concrete block, approximately 200 square feet, in a slum known as the Vambay Colony. You share this small home with your nine and twelve year-old grandsons. You never expected to be raising and providing for children again at this age, but your grandchildren are living with you because their parents died of AIDS first their father, who brought the infection home, in 2001; then their mother your daughter followed in 2004. There was no one ...

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