Biography
Candy is the youngest of six children. Her parents divorced when she was just three years old. To earn a living, her father joined The Mighty Bluegrass Shows, a Tampa based traveling carnival that traveled nine months out of the year. In 1979, her mother took the five youngest children out of Indiana and left them with their father, traveling from week to week and state to state. For a full year, from '79 to '80 the children did not attend school. Called carnies, this period was one of the happiest periods of Candy's life, though she rarely saw her father due to the fact he worked twelve hours a day, six days a week.
Never staying in one place for long, as a child, Candy lived in Indiana, Texas, Florida, Alabama and Louisiana. Most elementary years were spent attending at least two schools per year, due to all the moving around. Life was very hard. She never found real stability until she met her husband, Mark and got married in 1988.
While Candy always enjoyed writing long letters to relatives back home, poetry and even book reports, she never dreamed she would grow up to be a published author and screenwriter. However, after a seven year battle with her youngest son being bullied in school, Candy took a pen and paper and penned her very first book, titled, Please Don't Do That: Bullies in School Are Just Not Cool! which chronicled the daily tormenting Chris went through at the hands of bullies. Though she wrote the book in January 2005, it was not until the fall of 2006 when the book was published and Candy's life changed forever. She continued writing about bullying with the Cheyenne series of books. She then began writing novels. To date, she is the author of four books for kids, seven novels, an inspirational book about blessings and also her memoir which chronicles her turbulent life growing up in a dysfunctional family. All her titles can be found on Amazon.com and other fine retailers online. Candy has also written seventeen full length films and ten shorts films, having sold three of those shorts.
In March 2011, Candy's dream of visiting California finally came true when she traveled there with her husband and their son Daniel. The main purpose of that visit was so Candy could be on set when a small group of filmmakers produced one of her short films, titled The Santa Monica 128, in which Candy had the opportunity to make a cameo appearance, as well as meet actor Devon Gearhart, who starred in the film. They spent five glorious days visiting nine cities, including Los Angeles, Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, Anaheim, Burbank, Sherman Oaks, Malibu and Palmdale. She said she felt like a kid in a candy store as she walked Hollywood Boulevard and snapped pictures on the Hollywood Walk of Fame of her favorite stars. And perhaps her greatest thrill was standing underneath the famous "Hollywood" sign and having her picture taken. Upon returning home, Candy and Mark made the decision to start a film production company. Three months after the California trip, she started Dreams Come True Films, LLC and in September 2011, production was under way for her first feature film, "In a Cage" which is based on domestic violence. In 2013 "Vanished" went into production. In 2015, "Cries Unheard and "My Mother's Replacement" were produced. "The Promise" was next in 2016 followed by "A Second Chance" in 2017. 2018 was a big year for Candy and Dreams Come True Films, as Vanished was named Best Thriller, The Promise was named Best Comedy (twice) and A Second Chance was named Best Christian Film. As of 2019, Candy is in pre-production for a film titled The Text.
