California twins with dyslexia, ADD win awards for sci-fi books they have written

From AOL News:

Writing an award-winning book is hard to do for an adult, much less a teenager.

It's even more difficult when you have problems reading books.

But twin sisters from Orange County, Calif., who just turned 15 aren't letting little things like age, dyslexia or attention deficit disorder keep them from becoming acclaimed authors.

In fact, their difficulties have turned out to be an advantage.

The twins in question are Brittany and Brianna Winner, who, despite not even being old enough to drive, have already won eight awards for their first two books, "The Strand Prophecy" and "Extinctions Embrace" -- novels that prove false the old saying "Write what you know."

The books are part of an ambitious six-book sci-fi series about a reluctant superhero living in a world populated by robots, dinosaurs, missiles and explosions.

Although the Winner twins don't have much real-world experience with high-tech weaponry or dinosaurs, their formative years were almost as dramatic as their books.

In fact, the twins and their mom almost didn't survive their birth.

"Dad! You tell the story because you were there," Brittany said to her father, Jeff Winner. She laughed and added, "I don't remember much from that time."

It's a tale that is dramatic enough to be a movie, but one he still has a hard time telling.

"Twelve weeks into the pregnancy, they started to die -- both the girls and their mother, Ilene," Winner said.

Having no other options, the doctors resorted to exploratory surgery.

They found a twisted ovary that had turned gangrenous and was releasing deadly toxins, killing both mother and children. Winner says that even though the doctors did an incredible job, they nicked the uterus during the surgery.

So at 28 weeks, an emergency cesarean section brought Brittany and Brianna into the world weighing a puny 3 pounds, 9 ounces.

"We had three teams of doctors in the operating room," Winner said. "One team each for the twins and one team for their mother. They were sent to the neonatal intensive care ward in incubators with breathing tubes, IVs and wired to sensors that monitored everything. It was a very, very serious situation."

The prematurity was so arduous that both Brittany and Brianna spent much of the early years being sick together, but misery can breed company -- and creativity.


"I was sicker, and I spent a lot of times in hospitals, and Brianna was the only one who could play with me," Brittany told AOL News. "So we created the imaginary worlds. It started with hand puppets. Then we were literally creating galaxies. We even made a map, 'Just go to Pluto and make a left.'"

Despite having all this creativity, or maybe because of it, the Winner twins didn't feel like winners when they started school. Frankly, Brianna said she felt like a loser.

"I had ADD but didn't know I had the disability. I was slower at doing work because they thought I was day-dreaming or being a perfectionist.

"Brittany had it even worse," Brianna said.

"I was told I was brain damaged, even though it wasn't true. I had no self-confidence." Brittany said. "I have dyslexia, dysgraphia and other things I cannot pronounce or I would tell you. I also had a lazy eye and sometimes saw double."

However, for someone who thought she was a dummy, she had a college-level vocabulary and, like many dyslexics, had a very good memory.

"I thought it was a curse, but these days, if someone asked me if I could take it away with a magic wand, I wouldn't," Brittany said. "It's a part of who I am."

For Brittany and Brianna, the turning point from feeling like losers and becoming truly winners in all aspects of the word came when they were in fourth grade.

"We went to Dad and said, 'We're stupid. How are we ever going to get through school?'" Brianna said.

Brittany continued: "He said, 'No, you're not stupid,' and to prove it to us he said, 'Let's write a novel.' We thought, 'This is impossible. This is crazy,' and then we thought, 'Hey, this is what we're supposed to be.'"

So, with Dad's help, the daughters started working on the first book. And according to Brittany, they discovered each others' strengths.

"Brianna's good at spelling and reading, while I am good at character development," Brittany said. "Also, I am fast at typing, so that makes us an unstoppable force."

In addition, the girls also use speech-to-text programs so they can spontaneously act out the book scenes and put them on paper at the same time.

Meanwhile, Brianna said Dad helps keep them focused -- something she said is crucial at times.

"Sometimes, Brianna comes out with a scene so perfectly detailed that you can see what is in her mind," Brittany said. "But sometimes she gets hyper-focused on small details and I tell her we need to focus on the plot."

So far, things have worked out well.

The books, which are released under the author name "J.B.B. Winner," are available in bookstores across the U.S., and their first book, "The Strand Prophecy," has won many awards including the Benjamin Franklin awards for Best Young Adult Fiction, Best First Book Young Adult Fiction and Best First Book Fiction, as well as the Independent Publisher Book Awards Gold Medal.

It is believed that the twins are America's youngest multiple-award-winning authors; not bad considering they are at an age when many of their peers are obsessed with video games, clothes and hanging out at the mall.

But they aren't resting on the laurels. The twins are 85,000 words into their third book and are already planning spin-off sequels while finishing up the six-part series. In addition, they have a recording career in the works and have formed a production company to make the series into a movie.

Oh, and they also do motivational speeches at schools across the country to inspire other kids that "if they can dream it, they can write it."