Author Q&A

Video Transcript

(00:00)

This is your first book—where did the idea come from?

The idea for the book, The River of Birds, came from a dream that I had one night. I think the dream had to do with what I pictured as the migration of birds that happened in the spring, coming up the Eastern flyway. And I know they fly at night when they are safer. And they fly almost in this continuous stream that you can see on radar. And that idea had captivated me. But my dream had some special element in it, and that was somebody I knew was flying with this river of birds. And I told my writing partner about this dream the next day. She listened to me and thought about it and said, “I think there’s a story in there.” And she challenged me to turn it into a children’s book—a children’s picture book. And I had not ever thought of myself as writing children’s picture books at all. So at first I thought, no, this isn’t me. And then I thought, well why not? Why not give it a try? So that’s where it came from.

(01:30)

What prompted you to publish it?

I felt like this was an important topic to make available to children and to the adults who care for children, who are supporting children who have been affected by having somebody that they love die. My experience as a parent showed me that there were books out there about it, but they had different tones or avenues that weren’t especially satisfactory to me and weren’t really along the lines that we talked with our children about dying. And our children had experienced a great-grandmother dying and then their grandfather dying. And the main message that I wanted to give to my children and to children everywhere is that even when a body is gone, the love still remains with us. This seemed the most comforting and the most real and honest as far as my understanding of what happens when somebody dies. And so I felt like it would be something I wanted to offer to families as a tool to help when a grandparent or a special person leaves this life.

(03:18)

Was it hard to get it published?

It was hard to get this book published for two reasons—very different reasons. One is that I had a young family of my own, and this project, which is how I saw it at the time, was hard to keep moving when my kids were growing up and needing me, and I just didn’t have the energy to keep driving this forward. Plus, it felt like it was a work of my heart and to really bring a complete business mind to it was hard for me. The second reason it was hard to get this book published, is that the publishing industry first of all was a little touchy about books that had to do with death for children. Although there were some classics out there, but they weren’t putting out calls for these kinds of manuscripts. And then the publishing industry was going through a major transition from the old format, which was, you sent your manuscript out to a publishing house, and then waited a certain amount of time, and heard back from them a “yes” or “no,” and then you sent another batch out. And it was transitioning to what would ultimately become a much more welcoming market for self-published books. But there were all kinds of iterations in between and to try and stay on top of all of that was very challenging, as I was also raising my own family and trying to provide a cohesive home and messaging for everybody in my life. Recently, I was diagnosed with cancer. My children are pretty much grown-up now, and I realized that it was very important to me to offer this book as a tool for other parents to begin the conversation with their children about death, what happens when you lose a loved one, and about love. And this is important to me, and so I chose to self-publish, and it’s been a wonderful experience, and I’m thrilled with the outcome.

(06:08)

There are two other names on this book besides yours; who are they?

There are two other names on the cover of my book. One is my illustrator, Michael Boardman, who is a fantastic wildlife artist. He is especially good with birds. He has been an artist in residence at a couple of national parks in the US, and he does a lot of other shows with his own work. And he wanted to get into illustration for children’s books so it seemed like a match made in heaven. I’m thrilled to have him as my illustrator. And the other person is Mary Plouffe, who is a clinical psychologist and a PhD and had written her own book about her own experience raising her niece when her sister was diagnosed with cancer and eventually succumbed to it. So she was able to bring some really wise advice from a personal perspective to the book, to help the adults or the caregivers who are reading this book with a child, to understand how children grieve differently than adults do. And to offer some activities that might help the child engage with their grief. So, I consider Michael, Mary, and I to be a team on this book. And I can’t think of a better way to make this book a really helpful tool for parents and grandparents and social workers, and any adult in a child’s life.