About Valerie WELCOME to www.valerieconnelly.com . Here you will find Valerie's art, music, books and the archives for  HOT BOOKS --- GREAT AUTHORS talk shows she hosts each week. Enjoy your visit, explore the site and get to know Valerie better. BOOKS/PUBLISHING/AUTHOR In 2003, Valerie founded Nightengale Press, A Division of Nightengale Media LLC and has published over ninety titles so far. More are in the wings. As a book publisher, she has helped many authors from all over the US, Canada, Australia and Europe bring their books to life, and if you want more information about this revolutionary publishing firm, go to www.nightengalepress.com or www.nightengalepublishing.com for more information. Valerie has authored four titles herself, two novels, a children’s book and a myth-busting guide to the book publishing industry. Most recently, she brought together twenty authors to develop The ART of Grandparenting, which is an anthology of letters to newbie grandparents about Loving, Spoiling, Teaching and Playing with your Grandkids, as the subtitle states. Available at www.theartofgrandparenting.com and www.grandparentingbook.com . RADIO TALK SHOW / HOT BOOKS --- GREAT AUTHORS on WEB TALK RADIO You may have heard about or appeared on Valerie's first talk radio show Calling All Authors in the past. After a nearly four-year run of successful programs, she has moved on to WEBTALKRADIO when they came to her asked that she join their highly successful radio station. Listen to the very first new radio program HOT BOOKS --- GREAT AUTHORS which www.WEBTALKRADIO.net launched in November 2009. Valerie's new show is currently booked into March of 2010, and she's taking bookings for the 2010 season. Valerie is kicking it up a notch, with a brisk format and more incisive Q & A. This show will of course be fun and information rich, but the pace will be faster and more exciting. So, if you're interested, just click on the Radio Show Sign Up link on this page, complete the booking form to let Valerie know you are interested in appearing on HOT BOOKS --- GREAT AUTHORS in the New Year. You'll hear back quickly. ART Valerie took her first and only art classes in the eighth grade. She chose to study French as an elective in high school and as a major college, and so, let her art remain a hobby. Years went by. She founded BlockArt Prints Inc, in the mid-1990’s, and created hundreds of custom-designed, hand-carved block printed images for greeting cards and note cards for Chicago’s Brookfield Zoo and Lincoln Park Zoo, American Express, NASCI, and many small and medium-sized businesses in the Chicago area. She patented the Glowbox, which is an illuminated box that holds interchangeable panels of these images. In 1999, she began painting again and in the intervening ten years, has created a large portfolio of work, STRANGER IN THE WILDERNESS, which continues to expand monthly. The GALLERY here shows the breadth of her paintings, and both originals and prints are available for sale online and directly from the artist. Commissions welcome. MUSIC From her earliest memories, Valerie has loved music. She studied piano for seventeen years, voice for five years, learned to play guitar, and has been composing songs since she was fourteen years old. She has written over a hundred copyrighted songs, is a member of ASCAP since 1989, performed in Chicago and all over the Midwest, as well as in England as a young woman. She collaborated on and promoted a full musical (Nothing Is Ours but Time 1996), recorded two albums in the 1990’s, and continues to write songs and instrumental music today. EDUCATOR Valerie started her teaching career in 1969 in Togo, West Africa as a Peace Corps Volunteer. She taught English as a Second Language (ESL) there for two years. She returned to the United States, earned her Masters Degree at Northwestern University in 1981, and taught French Language and Literature from 1974 – 2005 in public high schools, middle schools and community colleges in the north-suburban area of Chicago for twenty-five years. She also taught ESL to immigrant adults in the early 2000’s. She was nominated to the Who’s Who in Education five times during her teaching career, and was elected Teacher of the Year by Phi Kappa Delta, receiving the OUTSTANDING EDUCATOR AWARD 2005, in Recognition for Extraordinary Dedication, Commitment and Service to Education. INTERNATIONAL TRAVELER Valerie has traveled extensively in France, Italy, England, Germany, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Belgium, Holland, Spain, West Africa, and Iran. She traveled in England as a teen. She joined the Peace Corps and lived in Togo, West Africa right after graduating from college. She designed the first curriculum and set up a school teaching ESL in Iran in the early 1970’s before the fall of the Shah. In 1981, she founded the non-profit Overseas Alliance to take American students to France on a month-long immersion language study program which she wrote and taught. During the five years Overseas Alliance was in existence, more than eighty American youth met then President François Mitterrand, who was an acquaintance of Valerie’s from her college and Peace Corps years.