Okotoks Author, Dee Bentley has recently sold 700 copies of her book Muscle and Heart - Fort McMurray Fire Stories, with all proceeds going to help the city and those affected rebuild and heal from their experiences.

After the success of her first compilation, she's turning her sights south to the region she now lives in.

Bentley says she is looking for people to submit stories about their experiences in the 2013 floods, as she is writing a book about the floods and those who survived them to commemorate the 5 year anniversary.

"I would love to see some submissions from any of the First Responders as well as the volunteers that helped with clean up. Ideally I would like to see the majority of submissions be from those who have been directly impacted."

The deadline for submissions is June 15th and Bentley says she's already received a few.

"I do have a few submissions already." She Shares that some of her entries are quite intense. "One is from a person who was there helping with relief efforts, another is from someone who didn't experience a lot of personal damage but was right in and among the chaos as one of the residents so their story is kind of exciting."

If you feel that you have a unique or exciting story but don't really know how to get it on paper, Bentley says she is willing to interview folks on their experience and then write the story.

"I can interview people either over the phone or through E-mail.  I find that E-mail works great because people can take their time working on their responses over a number of days. You can take breaks and work a number of other things and come back to it later."

Proceeds from the Muscle and Heart - Calgary, High River and Area Floods novels will be kept in Southern Alberta to help people recover, or will be donated to the area Food Banks.

Submissions can be emailed to MuscleAndHeartStories@gmail.com, and for more information on Dee Bentley and her Muscle and Heart books click here.

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