A Word Please

I recently came across a poetry book all about dogs called Dogs Forever! Poems For The Dog Person. I was immediately intrigued. Dogs have always been a huge part of my life, and I’ve never seen a poetry collection dedicated to dogs and the people who love them. I thought this would be fun to feature, so I contacted the authors. Turns out, the authors are a mother-daughter team – Dawn Colclasure and Jennifer Wilson. Jennifer, the daughter, is only 11 years old! (10 at the time they wrote the book!)

Dawn is here today to share the inspiration behind this poetry collection. I’ll introduce you, and step aside:

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Dawn Colclasure is a writer who lives in Oregon. Her articles, essays, poems and short stories have appeared in several newspapers, anthologies, magazines and E-zines. She is the author of seven books, among them BURNING THE MIDNIGHT OIL: How We Survive as Writing Parents; 365 TIPS FOR WRITERS: Inspiration, Writing Prompts and Beat The Block Tips to Turbo Charge Your Creativity; Love is Like a Rainbow: Poems of Love and Devotion and the children’s book The Yellow Rose. She is co-author of the book Totally Scared: The Complete Book on Haunted Houses. Her Web site is: http://dmcwriter.tripod.com

Jennifer Wilson is 11 years old. She writes poems and short stories. She is also a young artist, and her favorite type of art is Anime. She draws a variety of pictures and has created mini comic books either alone or with her friends. She has also written short books, creating her own cover art, and she also likes to write songs. She is a student at Cesar Chavez Elementary School in Eugene, Oregon. She also likes to read, especially Japanese comic books, play video games and watch a good horror flick. Some of her favorite authors are Dr. Seuss, Shel Silverstein, and Jeff Kinney.

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Dogs! Dogs! Big dogs, little dogs, funny dogs and lazy dogs! No matter what kind of dog in your life, you’ll find a poem that describes your furry friend in DOGS FOREVER, a mini book of poems that celebrate the bond between human and canine that only a dog lover would know.

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Sample poem by Jennifer Wilson:

Dogs Dream Of….

Dogs dream of bones.
They even dream of clones.
Dogs dream of balls.
They dream a cat falls.
Dogs dream they can fly
To go bye-bye.

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Twelve Books and Dogs Forever

“Twelve books in twelve months.”

The phrase was not new to me. It is a phrase that my friend and fellow author, Jenn Greenleaf, had said once before, when she really did bring out 12 books in 12 months. For her, it was a challenge she occasionally took on. Jenn is a woman who writes like there’s no tomorrow, so for her, writing and publishing twelve books in twelve months is doable. As for me? I saw that phrase a bit differently this particular year.

I saw it as a challenge to take on, as well.

Of course, the challenge did not work out. After one book in particular took months of work and I became determined to finish up other books I already had going on, the challenge to write (not publish) 12 books in 12 months was dropped.

However, something good came out of it: A poetry book I ended up writing with my daughter, Jennifer Wilson, who was ten years old at the time (she has since turned eleven).

I love writing poetry and I always look for new kinds of poetry books to write. Aside from one poetry collection I wrote that includes a mish-mash of poems on different topics, I prefer to write poetry books that are centered on a theme. This is what I did with Love is Like a Rainbow: Poems of Love and Devotion, which is a love poems book, as well as Songs of the Dead, which is a collection of dark and horror poetry. I am currently writing a poetry book for soldiers and I have another one planned that contains Christian poetry.

So it would happen that a poetry book I’d take on to write would have a theme. After some thought, I decided, why not write a poetry book about dogs and for dog lovers? After all, I am a dog person myself. And I had yet to see a poetry book celebrating dogs. I’d only seen one for cats. So why not a poetry book celebrating dogs?

Soon the time came for me to write this little book and I happily got started. But while I was writing this poetry book, I noticed that my daughter, Jennifer, was also writing. She’d been writing and creating her own “books” ever since she was a preschooler. I noticed she was writing poems, and that’s when an idea struck. Wouldn’t it be neat if Jennifer and I wrote a poetry book together?

So, one evening, I asked Jennifer, “How would you like to write a poetry book with me?” She grew excited and said that, yes, OF COURSE she wanted to co-author a poetry book with me! She was thrilled by the idea. She loved dogs just as I did, so that was just one other thing she liked about my proposition. The big thing, though? Her telling me something that I hadn’t known: “It’s my dream to be an author.”

Well, she was certainly in a position where she had an opportunity to become one!

The two of us wrote our poems and, you know what? The title of this book was Jennifer’s idea: Dogs Forever! Poems for the Dog Person. She even drew the cover, in addition to the illustrations included in this book.

I am so grateful to Kitty Bullard of Great Minds Think Aloud Publishing for taking a chance with a young and talented writer to help make her dream of being an author come true. Kitty published Dogs Forever and now Jennifer was officially an author and an illustrator.

And of course I am also grateful to my dear friend, Jenn Greenleaf. After all, if it had not been for her “12 books in 12 months” challenge, Dogs Forever may have never been born.

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Thank you, Dawn and Jennifer. You’re truly an inspirational team!

You can find Dogs Forever!, as well as all Dawn’s other books on Amazon:

Also available on Amazon UK and Barnes and Noble.

I hope you’ll take a look at Dogs Forever! and help support a young girl’s dream.

Thanks for reading.

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Tags: 365 Tips For Writers, Burning The Midnight Oil, Child Authors, Dawn Colclasure, Dog's Forever, indie authors, Jennifer Wilson, Poems About Dogs, Poems For The Dog Person, poetry, poetry authors, poetry books, Poets