In 1994, Riding the ski lift at Bridger Bowl, just north of Bozeman, MT, "Miranda and Starlight" was conceived. My then eight-year-old granddaughter, Jayme insisted she ride up the mountain with me and that I tell her a story on the way.
"And what would you like the story to be about?"
"A horse."
"Of, course. A horse and a girl?"
"Yes, a girl like me."
"What shall we name this girl?"
"Ummm, how about Miranda?"
"Okay. Miranda, a girl who wants a horse more than anything in the world?"
"Yes! Just like me."
The story unfolded out of my imagination, lift ride after lift ride and while warming our toes in the lodge until by the end of the day, I decided it was worth writing down. Five more books followed about Miranda's adventures with Starlight, the young, black stallion she loves.
I write stories based on situations I see in life, and the people who encounter them. The result is, though wholly made up, the books are honest — honest because I ask my characters how they think, what they would say, and how they feel in the dilemmas presented to them. I write what they show me.
Jayme's situation, and thus Miranda's, involved living with her grandparents away from her mother, attending a small rural school in which she felt left out, and believing that having a horse would solve all of her problems...or at least make them matter less. Miranda is impulsive, quick-tempered, and sometimes disobedient. She is also loving, loyal, and learns from her mistakes.
I wrote Danny's Dragon based on the experiences of kids I heard about in the news and our neighborhood; kids whose parent or parents went off to fight a war, leaving them behind. I put myself in the child's heart and mind. A bit of homesickness I experienced at age nine helped me understand. The death of my parents gave me an inkling of what a child that age would go through. Research on the stages of grief for a child helped me better understand the impact and the stages of grief he would suffer. So I made up Danny and his horse Dragon and put them on a cattle ranch in Montana. Danny's dad goes to war and is killed. Dragon, the horse his dad bought for him, becomes the object of Danny's anger, guilt, denial, and escape. For a time he loses Dragon, too. His relationships with his mother and his teenage sister fall apart as each cope with their grief in their own ways. Life changes make Danny's life even harder, but gradually open his mind to new ideas and realities. End the end, relationships mend, Danny and Dragon are reunited, and Danny has grown from a lost little boy to a stronger, wiser, youth.
Kyleah's Tree is based loosely on my own run-away-from-home fantasies as a preteen. It's also a twin story. I see the closeness of twins and ask, :"what would it be like if they were tragically separated?" Kyleah ends up in a foster home in Kansas after her mother dies. She was torn from the arms of her twin brother when her parents divorced years earlier. The biggest dilemma for Kyleah is a lack of self-esteem. She doesn't believe she's loveable so she doesn't let anyone close. "If only I were pretty," she thinks, "then people could love me." This lack of belief in herself contributes to her decision to run away with an older boy from the same foster home. They travel across Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana and into Saskatchewan with high adventure, narrow escapes, hardships, and loneliness along the way. Kyleah doesn't find her father and brother as she hopes, but she finds herself and what "home" really means.
Kendall's Storm explores the parallel life of Kyleah's twin as he flees one place after another with his errant father. He remembers his sister and wonders if she and his mother are alive, and if they ever think of him. A bedraggled puppy that he rescues from a storm becomes his friend and solace. Kendall is meek and fearful, wanting his father's love and acceptance, but often falling short of the mark. He must make decisions about his own life. Will he follow his father's footsteps? Will he conquer his fears? There is a foster home in his story, too, but a very different one from the one Kyleah fled and then returned to.
Not yet finished is the story of how the twins eventually unite. Several more stories are either written or in process. Homelessness, peer pressure, a two book series ritual abuse and escape to a fantasy world that turns out to be just as frightening, are a few of the subjects addressed.
I'm a grandmother, a wife, and a mother. Family is of primary importance to me. So is writing stories that reflect life and give readers heroic, yet human characters to relate to and learn from; books that not only engage the reader, but encourage and comfort them in the knowledge that they are neither bad nor alone.
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