In her first book, author Krystyna Bellamy chose to tell her own story.
Never Young is about the first 11 years of Bellamy’s life, growing up in a small farming community in Poland with an alcoholic father and her depressed mother.
“I used to dream about writing a book. I started taking notes … when I was five years old,” said Bellamy.
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“My life was difficult, my childhood was stolen from me, I lived in poverty and extreme hardship. I ran away from home.”
Now retired, Bellamy said that she found healing in writing her story.
“It wasn’t easy, I was definitely nervous. I had all kinds of fear but I realized I needed to tell this true story for me as much as for my family.”
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Since the book’s publication, Bellamy has received glowing feedback and is already working on the sequel, which will reveal her story after she immigrated to Canada and her life in Saskatchewan.
She later moved to Winnipeg to study English. She attended night school, as well as college classes while working at a part-time job on the weekends to support herself.
She has lived in Kelowna for the past 30 years.
“Most of the people who write their memoir, they fictionalize different parts. Mine is the truth. It all really happened to me, I lived it. I decided to tell the truth so that everybody could take something different from it,” said Bellamy.
Bellamy is hosting a book signing at the Ramada Hotel and Conference Centre on April 9, 7 p.m.
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