During her younger years in school, Cereka Cook wrote a lot of short stories and a children’s theatre production. Most of her creativity came from reading. Her mother used to buy books for her and her siblings several times each month. And although her mother stressed the importance of reading, Cereka enjoyed the characters and the “escapism” in books.

It wasn’t until 2002 that she became serious about writing. She was at work one day and had an idea of what she wanted to write about. There was a strong need for her to “get it all out” on paper. So, when she got home that same night Cereka immediately made an outline with characters, names, ages and occupations and the rest is history.

Cereka met James D. Jackson of Regal Publishing who assisted her with the editing and formatting of her novel. She ultimately decided to go with the P.O.D. (print-on-demand) option. In July 2004, her first novel Extreme Circumstances was finally available. And although she was excited that her work was finally in book form, she would soon learn that this was not the best route for her nor was it the most cost-effective.

After another chance meeting with best-selling author Richard Jeanty, Cereka Cook would ultimately land a contract with his company RJ Publications. They gave her novel a face-lift and re-launched it in March 2007. She likes to refer to it as Extreme Circumstances-the remix. Incidentally, she also plans to take this novel to the big screen.