Pamela Zdenek

About Pam: ~ Pam was born and raised in North Carolina. She met her husband (her H.S. sweetheart) literally “on the border”, at an amusement park that straddled the NC/SC state lines! After college, marriage, and a move to Texas over 42 years ago, they raised four beautiful children, and many ’adopted’ ones along the way. Their combined passion was to support young adults (friends of their children) who needed an extra set of parents, and shelter, as they managed high school, college, and the early career years. Pam is now a very proud “Ami” to an incredible grandson and granddaughter, and they have adopted a plethora of extra grandchildren along the way. A twin herself, like two of the characters in her debut novel "The Southern Cross", Pam’s own ‘instant soulmate’ at birth was killed in a very tragic automobile accident many years ago. Patricia was returning from a church youth group ski trip honoring her 12-year-old daughter Jessica, who was undergoing cancer treatments for a rare spinal cancer. This tragedy redefined Pam’s own life in many profound ways. In her own words, “Pat and I were two sentient beings who carried each other’s hearts in our hands; from the beginning, we believed that we could face the world together and remain as ballasts against the lateral winds of life… as two forces to be reckoned with. We were two against the world from the moment we took our first breaths. And now I am one. This heartbreak has defined me, and has deepened and defined my writing style. We both also shared a dream of writing, and a combined passion for literature and poetry as well. Pat was in the finishing stages of her lovely book “Chrysalis” when she was killed.” ~ My novel, The Southern Cross, is my own dream; its pages are an open avowal of my passion for storytelling and history… a history that rises from the ashes of the deepest of tragedies in us all~ the pain for those we will never be able to hold again in our arms and cherish with heart, soul and body. The underlying story of The Southern Cross is a story of how we move forward… as we must… and carry on, for those left behind. Nowhere is that determination, the courage and the fortitude found more profoundly than amidst the absolute hells of war… the human will to persevere, challenged by the indominable struggle for survival itself.