"I've been a good nurse for over 35 years, a mother of two kids, a wife for 38 years and an Air Force nurse, and it took me all this time to find out I can write," says 60-year-old Peggie Kahn, who recently had her first book published. "You never know what you can do unless you take a chance," she says.

Kahn's book, Welcome To My World, is a humorous take on her own experiences working at a psych unit in a Boulder nursing home. For the sake of the facility and its patients' privacy and protection, she doesn't mention any actual names.

"Most feedback I get is that people laugh themselves silly," says Kahn.

According to her, those who don't deal with psychiatric residents or work in the medical field have no idea that people living in homes are mentally ill.

"I think the public likes to ignore these people because many things they do are distasteful - but this is the reality of the mentally ill and someone has to take care of them," says Kahn. "They really can be entertaining at times as well as sad, terrifying and difficult to take care of."

Kahn recalls one of her experiences:

"One of my favorite residents I write about is Forest, the huge guy, that is very delusional all the time. He came to my desk one day and said he owned all of London and he wanted to make me a member of his millionaire club. He gave me play money and truly believes it's real. He also thinks that trees are aliens that produce pollen to kill him so he is afraid of them. Like I say in my book, thank God for modern medicine to keep these very delusional people less violent. They can become very violent. We are trained to care for them and try to bring them back to reality, but sometimes you have to leave them in their safe little worlds.

"The people I work with to care for these people are wonderful and kind. For so many patients, we are their only family. They affect us in the most profound way and at times make us very humble and grateful that we aren't walking in their shoes."

Kahn's book signing was held this fall at the nursing home she works at. She shared the space with fellow local author Louise Benson, who wrote Scapegoating for Columbine and also is a geriatric doctor at the home Kahn works at.

"Louise has had other book signings but this was my first," says Kahn. "Our books are very different, but we collaborate as authors on publishing, progress, direction, problems, ideas, marketing and so on. We've both been in the Boulder and Colorado area for many years."

In a matter of two weeks, Kahn claims she signed up to 100 books just by word of mouth in addition to vigorous online sales.

"The publishing company we use is iUniverse, out of Lincoln, Neb.," she says. "I knew Dr. Benson just by working with her as my patient's physician. We started talking about writing, I told her about my publisher and we've been passing ideas back and forth ever since and now other people that always wanted to write and/or publish are doing this also."

Although it took Kahn close to a year to write the book, she says it takes a very disciplined person to take on such a task.

"I usually spent an hour or two after work every evening -- writing after a funny thing happened at work, and on my days off I wrote for four to six hours a day," she says. "Some days I didn't write at all, but one or two days without being on the computer can make you stale."

What motivated Kahn to take on writing a book in the first place?

"My mother passed away and I was very close with her and missed her terribly -- so in order to divert my sadness, I wanted to fill my mind with something," she says. "Then, one of my friends and others -- especially nurses -- always said, 'You should write a book,' so I did and it filled the gape of grief for me."

However, even though Kahn chose to start writing as a form of distracting herself from what was really happening in her life, she became hooked on writing.

Speaking from personal experience, she believes a first book should be focused on a topic the writer knows a lot about. Now that she's past that point, Kahn is focusing on writing fiction. She hopes to bust out a five-book series about the Sicilian mafia and the Narduchi family -- who are tangled up in the Mafioso and the corrupt parliament of Sicily.

"When I do finish the series I am aiming high. Why not?" says Kahn. "I plan to send five books to a producer to see if anyone would be interested in making a movie from them. Pretty ballsy for an old broad, wouldn't you think?"

The following are a few helpful tips from Peggie on getting that book published:

- Have a subject you're familiar with, let your creative juices flow and don't let anyone discourage you.

- Only confide in positive people and when you do finish, only let two or three people read it to give you an honest opinion.

- Take the good with the bad and take honest criticism for what it's worth. If it feels good, then change a few things - if not, keep what you wrote the way you want it.

- A book can be published to start at $1,300 if you mail it in or a little less if it's sent over the Internet to the publisher.

- E-mail won't hold a book, so definitely mail it. You won't have enough space on e-mail.

- Hire someone to edit your work before you submit it. If you're looking for a Colorado-based editor, Jennifer Sexton is your go-to gal. Visit www.freewebs.com/sextonediting for more information.

Kahn's book can be found on www.barnesandnoble.com, www.amazon.com, www.e-books.com and www.iuniverse.com.

And, of course, feel free to contact Peggie Kahn at viggie3@msn.com.

To read about a former Denver resident who recently published her first book, click here. She's quite inspiring!