If This Found You, I Must Be Dead

Kelli Sheckler-Amsden died as she lived, completely unassuming. She was found in her bed, clutching her phone. Her notes folder open with the words; "you cut me open to see what I'm made of, but there are both darkness and light inside me."

What this writer found was enough to, well, let's take a moment and look into the sullen world of a dreamer who struggled to reveal life's extraordinary beauty hidden in a few cleverly crafted words. Her smile disguised demons designed for nightmares, and she passed with a mouthful of beautiful words waiting to be set free.

Following a lifetime of low self esteem and a lack of confidence, Kelli struggled to find her voice. In 2018 a series of tragedies began that would change everything, until release revealed itself in a multitude of wordplay and endless rhymes. When she discovered Vocal, a writing site online in the fall of 2020.

Plagued with undiagnosed depression, Kelli found herself lost in a world of melancholy, reliving happy moments of her past, escaping into the background, cradled in the beauty that surrounded her. Finding solace in the little things she began to journal her thoughts and in the spring of 2025, she was honored with first place in a song writing challenge. She placed in a handful of competitions and top story positions, but could never fully get her writing off the ground.

After her death, her daughters carefully collected a handful of poems and short stories from her library of over 2800, to create a book of poems they titled, "From The Mind Of My Mother." Which has now sold over 2 million copies.

When asked if Kelli would be happy with the selections they made, they simply smiled and replied, "mom would have been thrilled to know that this part of her life made the difference for someone else. We look at the success this book has made and only wish mom could have realized that her words made it possible for her to finally make her escape."

Kelli was cremated and her ashes scattered in an undisclosed location, but have been reassured it was where she always wanted to be.

You can find her works on vocal, telling stories her heart needed to tell.