July Spotlight Member - Aunt Bell

What better way to celebrate Twilight month than to add the sweet cherry on top that is our Spotlight Member of the Month. There’s something different about this month’s member spotlight. Although she doesn’t have any published stories, she is so devoted to the Twilight fandom that she has an amazing group dedicated to it. You can find just about any Twific you’ve dreamed of amongst her documents and I know for a fact that each new member to her Twilight Fanfiction group, gets a very warm welcome.

And with that, I welcome Monita who will now tell you a story about Aunt Bell.

Our Dear Aunt Bell

I first met Aunt Bell as she was a reviewer to my first fanfic ever. I was very new, apprehensive and scared about everything. I could see other people using terms like ‘Canon’ and ‘EPOV’ and I had no idea what they meant. I was scared I would do something wrong and be kicked off the site. I asked on my authors profile if someone could please explain these terms to me. Months after I asked, Aunt Bell replied starting with “I’m sure you know this already but Canon means....” And I was so grateful for her help. I had finished my first fanfic and had just begun working on ‘Bribie’. I wanted a Beta and Aunt Bell offered her services. She is a brilliant Beta, she also pre-reads and writes up calendars for me (not that I want to tell you how brilliant a beta she is, because she is ALL mine LOL).

Not long after that, Aunt Bell added me to her group on Facebook ‘Twilight FanFiction’. It was the first group I had ever been added to. She even confessed once that she made it by accident; she thought she was grouping her friends ;) She has nurtured this little group (very independently), coming up with ways to make us interact with each other, and as such I have made loads of new friends.

Some fun fast facts about Aunt Bell:

• I know her real name, but I’m not telling anyone!

• She is a very proud and doting aunty to her little nieces;

• She loves bells – it’s not to do with ‘Bella’, she actually has a fascination with bells;

• She has never left America but we would love to have her here in Australia;

• Her favourite character in Twilight is Jasper and she has a BIG thing for Jackson Rathbone;

• She enjoys country music;

• She only has two photos of herself on Facebook, a baby photo and a cheerleading photo from early high school;

• Her pet peeve is fics with bad spelling, grammar and punctuation;

• She absolutely doesn’t believe me that I entered her in this; I don’t know what she’ll think about winning!!!!

Aunt Bell has also written her own original fanfic. I have a copy. She has tentatively given me permission to publish an extract in this interview, but only if she approves it first. She believes she will never win the ‘member spotlight’ so... what do you want me to do about that?

Cheers, Monita aka Widdle Wombat

Monita asked:

‘What do you know and love about Aunt Bell?’

‘How did you meet Aunt Bell?’

Christina Kelly

I love her passion, her personality, her willingness to help and her true beauty. She has offered to beta for me but I knew that she already has too much on her plate, but I want to thank her for offering.

She’s outstanding, beautiful and awesome. I met her through a friend of mine, Laura.

Wanne Cullen

She reads and reviews as much as she can, and when she can't, she feels bad. I love her unselfishness, personality and kindness. She’s bubbly, caring and awesome.

I can’t remember when I met her. Umm geez it's only been a few months and I’m drawing a blank, I don’t mean that in a bad way with Bell, I just feel like I’ve known her longer so when we met doesn't matter so much. I think i met her through the FFAA Forum.

Our Bell is an awesome caring friend who deserves much more and she should SO come to Australia.

Muriel Gaylee

Aunt Bell has a beautiful heart and always seems to be sending encouragement to others. She is talented, intelligent and has a fabulous sense of humour!

Rose Masen Cullen

I haven't really known her that long, but from our limited interactions, I gather her to be a very kind, very sweet person, who’s always ready to bring a smile to people's faces.

Callie WoahNow Jordan

She works so hard for everyone, reading, reviewing and beta'ing. I love her selflessness, drive and kindness. She’s loyal, caring and dedicated.

She had left reviews for Distracted and they were lovely. She has also helped me out a lot with information on American graduations. She gave me very thorough, detailed accounts, which was incredibly helpful. She went above and beyond what I expected.

She left me a review, and I thought I recognized the name and I realized she was your beta and so really, you're the reason we started talking properly

I love Bell and her devotion to her fandom work, as I'm sure you do. She works her socks off!

Following is an extract from one of Aunt Bell’s unpublished stories titled My First Mate, My True Love. This is an FFAA exclusive!

‘I looked down to the beauty in my arms, the pain in my dead heart was tearing me apart. I couldn’t move. I didn’t breath. Death was the only thing I wanted now. I finally buried her body, with her heart, next to the large boulder we often spent our time. It was our place.

I sat there for days, crying. The betraying venom tears never falling. Eventually, I moved to the tiny capsule just behind the waterfall and sat motionless. Head resting on the stonewall behind me, arms to my sides, palms up, legs stretched before me, and eyes staring at the freshly covered grave. Days, weeks, months went by. I didn’t hunt. I didn’t move....’

If you want to read more, then you must hound the lovely Aunt Bell to hurry and post it up!

That concludes our Spotlight member of the month. We hope you’ll take the time to leave your message for Aunt Bell below. She truly is a gem and we know FFAA wouldn’t be complete without her ;)