Back when my mom passed, I took 4 tubs of “things”. I wasn’t sure what to do with them and, because they were all in these tubs, I knew I could go through them when I had time. In one of the tubs I found this poem she wrote for a creative writing class. I believe my mom was a frustrated artist wannabe. She was very creative. She sewed and painted, and wrote among other things.

I took the poem and put it in my top desk drawer where I have seen it for the past several years every time I opened the drawer. I’m not sure why I took that out of the tubs and I didn’t know what I was going to do with it but there it remained for several years. Until last week.

Last week, I decided I would actually turn it into a children’s book. I’m not a huge Halloween fan and that put me off of the idea for a book for a few years but it finally seemed like this was the time to make it into a book.

I used mostly her words. I created the illustrations with AI and I made minor adaptions to the poem to be better understood. The original post talked about Jack the Ripper, Black Bart, and Bluebeard which I though were a little obscure for kids. I also wrote the back cover text and titled it.

I got the book proof yesterday and it’s so cute! Best of all, I just know my mom would be tickled to have a book out there with her name on it. It will go on sale to the public on August 1.