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WEST VALLEY VIEW NEWS | FEBRUARY 2, 2022
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Millennium graduate publishes 2nd book BY LAUREN SERRATO
West Valley View Staff Writer
D
uring the pandemic, many college freshmen are adjusting to life in a dorm room and navigating their way through online classes. Abi Celaya has focused on writing and publishing her second book in her “Two Red Flames” trilogy. The 18-year-old NAU freshman published her first book, “The Goddesses Throne,” in January 2021, when she was a senior at Millennium High School. Now, despite her busy college schedule and moving to Flagstaff, Celaya said she’s excited to see her fantasy series continue to come to life for others to experience with her newest book, “A Throne of Their Own.” “This is the second book in a fantasy series that I’m writing,” she said. “This book picks up directly after the first book, and it left off on a little bit of a cliffhanger, but it just sort of explores a new villain, explores the character relationships and how the characters have grown from the first book to the second book.” From a young age, Celaya knew she wanted to write. In middle school, she came up with story ideas, plots and characters. But it wasn’t until high school that she put her ideas on paper and created her first novel. However, her first book didn’t go the way she wanted. “When I actually wrote my first book, I didn’t publish it, but I really enjoyed the process of writing a novel,” she said. “I just wasn’t confident in that exact story, so I decided to scrap that one and start on another one. And that is sort of how I started writing my current fantasy series.” Celaya’s writing journey officially began in summer 2020, when she first sat down to write her trilogy.
Abi Celaya is a freshman at NAU, pursuing a degree in journalism and creative writing. (Photo courtesy of Abi Celaya)
“I ended up publishing my first book in January 2021, and then immediately after I published that book, I took a two- or three-week break and then I started working on this book,” she said. “This book definitely took me longer, just because of college. That was a big part of it. My first semester of college I didn’t really work on it that much. I had some people help me edit it because it was already written by the time I started college. It took maybe double the time that the first one took.” Within the first few weeks after releasing her first book, 50 paperback copies and seven Kindle versions were purchased. Celaya hopes to top that. “It was really nice. Everybody was super supportive,” Celaya said, reflecting on her book launch in high school. “Everybody was just really excited because I don’t think anyone in our town knew somebody who had
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