Cedar Key Beacon - April, 2006
LOCAL WRITER CAPTURES ESSENCE OF CEDAR KEY
Strangely enough, Pierce Kelley’s ambition as a writer began while living in Miami and he broke his ankle playing in a softball game. He wrote his first book while convalescing.
“While I was injured and unable to play tennis or do anything else, I started writing ‘Introducing Children to the Game of Tennis.’ I had started a league for beginning tennis players and noticed that I kept saying the same things over and over again, so I decided to just write it down and maybe that way I wouldn’t have to repeat myself so much. The book was a success. The United States Tennis Association and Tennis Magazine called it THE perfect introduction and primer for beginning players.
Another instance of turning misfortune into literary inspiration was during the time of his divorce in 1998. Kelley wrote a legal textbook. He was teaching a paralegal class and didn’t like the text he was teaching from and decided that “he could do better than that, and the second book was underway.
“My success with those two ventures encouraged me to become a writer. “It was what caused me to take that first step.”
Before moving back to Miami, where he helped to create a state-wide youth tennis league while with the Youth Tennis Foundation of Florida, Kelley had attended Tulane University on a full tennis scholarship and then he obtained his law degree at the George Washington University where he coached the varsity tennis team, which paid his tuition for law school.
“In 1971 I was the number 46 ranked men’s player in the United States, which was, at the time, the equivalent of about the top 150 or 200 players in the world,” said Kelley.
One’s perceptions, experiences and views of the world are what Kelley recognizes as the vital elements that compose literature.
“No one lives in a vacuum,” Kelley says, “and you write what you know.”
What Kelley knows is “legal courtroom drama” as he has been a practicing lawyer and educator since he passed the Florida Bar in 1974. He has served as lead trial counsel in over 100 jury trials and has successfully argued before the Supreme Court of Florida and West Virginia. Since 1985, Kelley has worked exclusively in the area of civil litigation.
Kelley presents scenarios that involve issues that often occur…the “what ifs” relating to situations that could result from a momentary lapse in judgment that take a turn for the worst and have horrific legal consequences.
“In every one of my novels, I have tried to make the readers to think that what happened to the main character could happen to them.”
Kelley came to Cedar Key because it is a unique community which he has come to enjoy very much. Kelley has lived in Florida most of his life and says there is no place like Cedar Key anyplace else in the state. “I enjoy writing books that allow me to utilize my experience and expertise from my years of being a lawyer. “I moved to Cedar Key because I thought it would be a great place to write, and it has been.”
Fistfight at the L and M Saloon is a novel about a fight that occurs at a bar in Cedar Key. “It’s a story about what could happen to anyone who happens to be in a bar, minding his own business, when an unruly fellow patron starts a fight. The legal issue involves how not to become an accessory after the fact.” It is written about Cedar Key and it captures the essence of what is a small fishing village with a population of less than 850 people