I am Lanien Theard aka Peachie T, Peach T BooksLLC. This blog is a culmination of several years of research and jumping in with both feet to write a children's story!
Inspiration came with letters from my mother who provided a real back story, a true grandmothers's tale. Mother was a journalist and my Dad was a retired Air Force officer. They lived in Georgetown, South Carolina 15 minutes from Pawley's Island on the East Coast. They would go to Pawley's Island for beach weekends and attend an island church over looking the island march waters. Imagine their surprise when a baby alligator ran through the door and up the isle to hide. This read like lovable chaos to me! All ages of people loved this kind of story and it deserved to be told. My next decision was how to begin the process.
I captured the essence of the story on paper and chose the location of Grand Chenier, Louisiana, a well known hunting and fishing area. I wanted the story to appeal to a range of young children, age 3 to 9. There had to be lots of colorful visual imagery to suite the story and I wanted a teaching element embedded in the content along with a new word list.
The " how to" part of putting things together to produce the book was a journey. I had no idea how long that would require. What I learned was an "eye" opener! The first issue was finding a publisher or a publishing program to put the book together. I found that the old traditional ways of publishing were changing. I needed research, research, research!!! Our digital age had changed so much that some predicted that eventually there will be no books but rather on line e-books. I understood the use of e-books but something in me rejected the notion that a child's first book would be an electronic tablet! I eventually found that there were reliable sites that would answer my questions. My research ended in choosing the Selfpublishing.com group of Tuckahoe, New York. They assisted me in my first self publishing project. I became the publisher and the newly published author of Peach T Books, LLC. My first story was "Andy Alligator's Bayou Adventure" A Grandmother's Tale...by Peachie T.
Until next time, I am Peachie T.