Something New for Our Next Book

A New Illustration Style

Pearl and I are continuing to feel a need to “spread our wings” and try new things.

The book that we have been aching to write is a compilation of all of the things that we have learned along the way about The Living Library. Each of our print books has included new details that we’ve learned along the way about The Living Library, but our next project is to compile them all into a single resource book that we believe will entertain readers as well as to help bring the world of birds, and especially songbirds into the world of our readers.

Hopefully this fictional world has been built so well that readers will feel immersed in it, and that is why the illustrations have been drawn using sepia tones when working in Affinity Designer on my iPad.

I like the look of the sepia tones. They compliment the old, yellowed pages of the notebook in which they appear to be found.

The foundational backstory to all of these books is that I, the author, discovered a shoebox filled with notebooks written years ago and hidden away in the attic of my house that I bought. The shoebox had the name “Gracie” written on it along with a pair of pink ballet slippers and other collected treasures. These were all made by a teenage boy named Nate Elliot. (He should be much more relatable to middle grade and older readers than me as as old man!)

One of the values of having illustrations in sepia tones is that it leaves more for the reader to imagine such as the actual colors. This is similar to how a well-written story lets readers fill in the missing details as the story plays like a mental movie.

These pages also capture text intended to tell the story as if a chapter or section of the book was condensed into one or two sentences like a bullet point.

We have stayed away from ePub books because our first-ever book was originally introduced in 2009 as an ePub book because all of the publishing “authorities” said that was what people wanted. We had no sales at all. Zero. Zip. Empty bowl. We are wondering about using sepia illustrations for ePub versions and full-color for print versions.

Author Bio Secret: My favorite movie is The Wizard of Oz. After the overture and opening credits, it begins with a farmyard filled with chickens and filmed in sepia. Chickens are quite impressive, even in sepia!

Author Bio Secret: My favorite color for years was brown. When I painted in high school, I often used a palette of mostly raw and burnt sienna with raw and burnt umber. This gave me a pleasant range of browns that could appear like sepia tones. It also helped me understand and use values of light to dark tones. Value is more important than color!

Pearl’s First Literary Non-Fiction (or “Faction”) Book

To set the stage and give you as much background information as possible without giving the whole book away and leaving no delightful surprises…

Illustration by the Author

As the next Bibliothécaire Principale, or Head Librarian, of the entire Living Library throughout the world, Pearl is required to produce books to be read by people. These books should help her to fulfill the mission of The Living Library. We thought it would be good to explain the background of her first book which will be about The Great Gardener’s Son. This is the name that chickens use for who we people call Jesus Christ.

Once you understand His place in her heart, you will understand why this had to be her first book and could be called “literary non-fiction” or even “faction.”

What follows are Pearl’s own words which she asked me to write down for her.

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The Hat By Which We Chickens Know Him
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Before I share with you the hats I created for teaching about Our Great Gardener’s Son, please allow me to share with you His hat, the hat that we chickens know him by. I did not make this hat, but it is the most perfect hat for him. We always watch and wait for this hat.

It is a simple hat made of straw woven together, and it has a simple brown cloth band around it. Of all the hats he might have chosen, it is the one that suits him best. Although it is certainly humble, he wears it as if it were a crown of gold and jewels when he comes to spend time with us.

I have seen him wearing this hat when he comes to check on us and to make sure that we have what we need for food and water. He also checks to make sure we have safety and shelter.

It is a hat that we like because it is made from straw, which is what we chickens use to build our nests or simply to sit on to feel warm and comfortable.

Even the brown band around it reminds us of the brown on our feathers and the brown on our eggs. We are also reminded of the brown of the earth beneath our feet, from which our food grows and through which earthworms squirm.

We will also see him wearing this hat when he comes to take one of us away with him to a place where we will know no more pain or sorrow, only the joy of being in his presence. Those of us who are left behind are saddened, but we are also gladdened when those among us are no longer troubled by pain and discomfort.

That is what happened on the day my best friend, Blanche, left us. It was an Easter Sunday morning, and as her body became still, he reached in, picked her up and held her to his chest. She looked up at him with love in her eyes, nodded, and they were gone.

I stayed with her body because she looked as if she had just fallen asleep, but that didn’t seem possible because she had been sick for so long.

When Nate, our Gardener, came home, he found a perfect spot for her under the camellias.

We knew she was with The Great Gardener’s Son, and truly, what more could any chicken or person ever want beyond that?

But I do miss Blanche so much. Some days I stand at the top of the chicken ladder and call for her to come home, and the loneliness is hurting so deeply.

I try sitting on my eggs to help them hatch, but they never do. Nate says it’s because the city won’t let him have a rooster and roosters aren’t very friendly. I just want someone to love. That’s all.

This handsome hat looks quite impressive with his beard and brown suspenders. We chickens love this hat. It would be just like him to take it off his head and offer it to one of us as a cozy nest because he is always caring for the lowest of the low like he is their humble servant. I also imagine that after we have laid our eggs in his hat and kept them warm, he would wait with us for them to hatch.

He would treat them as if they were his own, and truly they would be his own since we are all his own. He does the same for people who are born instead of hatching. How that getting born stuff happens is a mystery to me, but it’s no more a mystery than hatching from an egg. Both are quite miraculously mysterious in their own way.

For some of you, what I’ve asked Nate to draw is not exactly the picture you may hold in your head of the Great Gardener’s Son. I don’t want you to change your picture. If anything, I want only to perhaps enhance the picture you hold in your head and help you to hold it in your heart as well. This is a far more important job for me than anything else I might do.

What people think about The Great Gardener’s Son is probably more significant for them than almost anything else.

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Pearl and I have prepared the files to send them off for publication through Barnes & Noble Press. We are aiming for a moderately thin paperback book with full-color illustrations to keep the price down.

We think you will find the illustrations of Pearl’s hat creations very memorable! After we have received a print copy to inspect, we will let you know where it will be available!

Illustrations by the Author

A New Start for GraciePress

Image from the GraciePress website.

Here is a link to our GraciePress website.

When I began publishing under the imprint of “GraciePress,” I did not think about how one day my sweet Gracie would leave us. But now that she is gone, I have to think about what to do with “GraciePress.”

For a time, Amelia took Gracie’s place in my heart, and then Pearl did the same. With Amelia, I could tell what to expect, but Pearl is always unexpected.

Pearl is as beautiful as she is goofy. When I’m working on a story and get writer’s block, I’ve learned to just bring in Pearl, and she will get me unstuck and make the plot start moving again. I can not say that about any of the other chickens, not even Gracie.

So what is the central thread that holds all this work together? It’s still Gracie.

Gracie represents all that is good and gracious and generously given without asking anything in return. She is a promise made and a promise kept. She is a true and faithful friend who never puts her own wishes first. She is everything I want each of my books to be.

The name “GraciePress” is one that will continue on. This past weekend, I updated the “GraciePress” website. So that it features our books in print with previews for downloading and links for purchasing. There’s also a slideshow with illustrations from our most current and soon-to-be-published book titled The Great Gardener’s Son and subtitled A Devotional from the Perspective of a Little White Hen.

Image from the GraciePress.com website

This book is one of many to be centered around Pearl and represents a fresh, new start for me as a writer and illustrator. Although Gracie was a brilliant ballet dancer, as a comedian with a flare for hats and costumes, Pearl attracts a much broader audience. She also knows how to hold an audience’s attention since she is so unpredictable.

I feel so fortunate to have such a talented little white hen living in my own backyard garden!

Pearl also seems to be our best ambassador to the world who can share a chicken’s perspective on so many important things like The Great Gardener’s Son. This is the name for Jesus that chickens use.

It may seem strange to have a chicken inspiring and being featured in a Christian devotional book, but I think it’s no stranger than super hero characters found in similar books.

One Final Note: We will let you know when The Great Gardener’s Son is available for sale. All of the files have been uploaded, and they were approved by the team at Barnes&Noble Press. I’ve ordered a proof copy to make sure everything is the best it can be.