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Retired teacher is new author
By Derek Hodges
 Cherrie Ann Moses calls it the first in her science fiction series. Her niece calls it a cross between Scooby Doo, Nancy Drew and Star Trek. Most people will call it Erin Landers and the Phantom Peril of the Night.
Erin Landers is the main character in a series of science fiction books that Moses is writing for young people. She says her books are aimed at children age 9 and older, but she has gotten a positive response from both children and adults.
Moses, a Tuckasegee native who was a teacher at Fairview and Camp Lab schools for 14 years, said she intentionally made Landers, who is 13 years old, and her friends early teenagers.
"I wanted to present children with positive relationships with adults. It's a fun take on something that people stereotype as an adult field," Moses said of using young teens as main characters in a science fiction book.
Not only does she hope to reach young people, she said she also hopes to reach both boys and girls. The fact that Erin is a girl shouldn't discourage boys from picking up the book, Moses said.
"It's not just for girls. Some of Erin's friends will really appeal to boys, too," she said.
It's not just her desire to market her book that drives her. While she admits that book sales are important in writing, she says it's more important that kids read.
"My advice is just to read, read and read," she said.
The book begins as something of a mystery, with Erin, her friends and several others from the group's base camp on the fictional Zata III, which Moses writes is a moon in the Corelian System, setting out to investigate why communication with another camp on the moon has failed. In the process they discover an enslaved native race being forced to mine for minerals and core materials.
Because they know that when the moon is stripped of its resources it will break apart, Erin and her friends work to stop the destruction and free the natives.
It took Moses two years, including many rewrites, to finish the book. It is currently listed for sale on the Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, and Books–a–Million Web sites.
The last few months since her book first went on sale in August have been pretty exciting, Moses said.
"Shock and awe" is how she describes the feelings she's had since she first saw her own book in print. Phantom Peril of the Night, published by Publish America, of Baltimore, is Moses' first book.
"I'm a new author, that by itself is a dream come true. It's just kind of amazing," she said.
Moses has already completed the manuscript for Erin Landers and the Citadel of Fear. The second book takes Erin to another planet to investigate some odd happenings at an ancient citadel.
"It's basically a ghost story with a happy ending," Moses said.
It was her love for children and for teaching that got Moses into writing this series. That's also what's going to keep her putting pen to paper, as she adds more stories to the Erin Landers series, she said.
"As a former teacher I want to encourage our children to pursue their dreams. If you don't try you'll never know if you'll be successful," Moses said.
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