When she was 8 years old, Kristen Kirschner was pictured in The Beachcomber.

“With confidence, I told the the roving reporter that when I grew up, I would be a writer, and I would live on the Island year ’round,” she said. “Well, we’re halfway there.”

She recently had her first book published, Suddenly, at Beach Haven. It is written under her pen name, K.H. Miller. The author described it as a historical romance inspired by the real- life 1916 New Jersey shark attacks.