Northern California Publishers & Authors

Company: PBJ Publishing
Phone: 916-772-4872
Cell: 916-759-6559
E-mail:

Topic

• Children’s books

Bio

I’m a single parent of two boys. We live in Roseville, California. I started writing my stories when I was 55 years old, but I began telling the stories to my children many years before that. When my boys were only four or five years old I would create a new and different story for them every night as a bedtime story so they would go to sleep smiling . . . and they did. I had no idea back then that someday I would be recreating those stories and turning them into books. However, in 2003, after 23 years working for Pac Bell (sorry, I cannot call them SBC or AT&T), I was offered a retirement package I could not refuse and I took an early retirement. After I retired, I decided to use my newfound leisure time to recreate and write down some of the stories I used to tell my boys. I knew they enjoyed my stories very much, so I decided to leave them a legacy, something to remember me by and something that they could read and pass on to their children.

The stories are about three little forest animals that become close friends and find ways to teach, entertain, and learn from each other as they explore all the wonders of the forest that surround them. These storybooks have been written for the age range of four to seven years old and the main characters are Boga Bear, Skola Squirrel, and Bunko Bunny. They are three very unlikely animals that become friends and meet daily on The Green to play, talk, and plan what they’re going to do that day.

As soon as someone picks up my storybooks, they will notice right away that they are very different from the average children’s book. My storybooks have a lot more words and a lot fewer pictures than the average children’s book. I have purposely designed them that way. I want to help revive the art of storytelling and have children use their imagination to see things rather than relying on pictures. My storybooks are designed for parents to read to their children, just as I told the stories to my children. My illustrator, Don Ratkowsky, has done a marvelous job of hand drawing and painting every picture that you see in these books. Don’s wonderful artwork brings a visual aspect to the book that makes the story come alive. His use of color, shading, and depth perception almost makes the pictures leap off the page. My hope is that children will enjoy hearing my stories read to them as much as my boys enjoyed hearing them from me. Then as the children grow and learn to read on their own, my hope is that they will come away from each reading with a new or different piece of information that they didn’t have before. It might be something as simple as a new word, a phrase or a new way of looking at things, but something new, something different.

All of my stories are written to be fun and enjoyable, but they’re also designed to teach. I try to bring out lifelong lessons such as getting along with others, learning from personal experiences, and making decisions (and the pleasures or consequences of those decisions). I also like to use morals because I believe they can be another wonderful learning and teaching tool for children. I like to weave the morals into the fabric of the story and then let the characters bring them to life. This way, the listener learns from the characters and their actions, and not from the reader. Friendship, courtesy, and respect (not only for each other, but also for all the animals in the forest, and the forest itself) are just a few of the morals that I’ve used in these stories. These are the kinds of lifelong messages I want children to learn and appreciate as they listen to and read my stories.

When I’m not writing or promoting my books, I try to stay involved with my children and their schools. I’ve been on school boards, and I’ve been the head track & field coach at their elementary school and the assistant track & field coach at their high school. I was the committee chair of my sons’ Cub Scout Pack and am currently a committee member of their Boy Scout Troop. I’ve been president of my homeowners association and the membership director of the Northern California Publishers & Authors. When it comes to my boys and their other various sporting events and activities, I support them as much as I possibly can.

Writing is the easy part of my life. The hard part is trying to keep up with my boys with all their various activities and still squeeze in time to market and sell my books; but I love every minute of it! Writing and being involved with my boys is what keeps me going and keeps me feeling young.