Until she was 15, local author and eighth-grade English teacher Cecilia Galante was raised in a cult.
Technically a religious commune in rural New York, the cult was based on a "warped interpretation of Catholicism," which separated children from their parents and required the men to hand over all their paychecks to the leader - "a crazy, power-hungry guy who pretty much brainwashed everybody," Mrs. Galante said.
Now 41, Mrs. Galante used her time in the cult as inspiration for her first book, "The Patron Saint of Butterflies," published by Bloomsbury in 2008. It tells the story of two girls rebelling against the critical and abusive environment of the commune in which they live.
"It was the story that I had to tell before I could write anything else," she said.
The novel for young adults is Mrs. Galante's biggest commercial and critical success to date, winning accolades that include a spot on Oprah Winfrey's Teen Reading Book Club.
A graduate of Bishop Hoban High School (now Holy Redeemer High School) and King's College, Mrs. Galante taught in Wilkes-Barre public high schools for several years while trying to write and publish her first novel.
She left the school district in 2009 to focus on writing and raising her children with her lawyer husband, but this fall decided to go back to teaching at Wyoming Seminary.
Contact the writer: pcameron@citizensvoice.com, @cvpetercameron