https://carissaturpinbooks.com/upcoming-events daily 0.75 2026-03-01 https://carissaturpinbooks.com/upcoming-events/winter-burrow monthly 0.5 2023-10-12 https://carissaturpinbooks.com/upcoming-events/louisville-book-festival monthly 0.5 2023-10-12 https://carissaturpinbooks.com/upcoming-events/kentucky-book-festival-1 monthly 0.5 2023-10-12 https://carissaturpinbooks.com/upcoming-events/8ous7bsfue3xm0fyepu3oyxoxw2vua monthly 0.5 2022-11-01 https://carissaturpinbooks.com/upcoming-events/author-event-at-the-estill-county-library monthly 0.5 2022-12-12 https://carissaturpinbooks.com/home daily 1.0 2026-03-01 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61a11e5eb00160588e2b31f8/46999d4a-6e97-4e8c-8745-f9a26a3746b9/FG0A6416.jpg Home - Carissa Turpin is a middle grade author and educator from Kentucky. Stick around to learn more, purchase books, or contact her. She’d love to hear from you! Having grown up in the small town of Irvine, Kentucky, I’ve spent most of my life in and around Eastern Kentucky, aside from three lovely years I spent living in the Phoenix, Arizona area. I am currently completing my seventeenth year in the classroom—I spent a decade teaching high school students and am now completing my fifth year with middle schoolers. I’ve been an avid reader and writer my entire life, and I earned my MFA in Creative Writing from Eastern Kentucky University’s Bluegrass Writer’s Studio. I’ve had small pieces published in literary journals such as West Texas Literary Review and Mom Egg Review. My first novel, Doomsday Dani, was published by Orange Blossom Publishing in March of 2023. It went on to win Gold for Best First Chapter Book in the 2023 Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards. My second book, a short story collection entitled A Mess of Monsters will be published by Orange Blossom Publishing in September of 2026. https://carissaturpinbooks.com/contact-me daily 0.75 2025-11-08 https://carissaturpinbooks.com/doomsday-dani daily 0.75 2025-11-08 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61a11e5eb00160588e2b31f8/ff322ae2-60e7-45c1-9d44-4a0adaf4126d/311779765_10105949655080803_9125922789366018739_n.jpg Doomsday Dani - Winner of a Gold Medal in the 2023 Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards! It’s 1999, and 12-year-old Dani Collier is preparing for Y2K or, in her view, the end of the world. She spends most of her time poring over a survivalist blog written by the mysterious Professor Prepared and obsessively counting and straightening her emergency supplies. Despite Dani’s repeated warnings, her classmates and family members don’t seem worried about the new millennium. Dani ignores their skepticism and ridicule, vowing to do whatever necessary to protect the people she loves. But when January 1st, 2000 unfolds in a way that Dani didn’t expect, she must instead come to terms with her new reality: her parents’ recent divorce, a blossoming, awkward friendship, and repeated humiliation at the hands of a school bully. Will Dani learn to stand up for herself? Will the embarrassment of her failed prediction haunt her forever? Doomsday Dani deals with themes of familial dynamics, social ostracization, propaganda, and speaker reliability. Click here to purchase a signed copy! https://carissaturpinbooks.com/new-page daily 0.75 2026-03-01 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61a11e5eb00160588e2b31f8/1bd49113-9fcf-4bcd-8b95-ab741aaa621d/mess+of+monsters+cover+CROP.png