The Inside Scoop
As a family we’ve always loved stories. We read together, listen to audiobooks when we travel, and have bookshelves filled with books. So it makes sense that we would move from reading stories to also creating them, which became a small part of our Friday Fun Night entertainment. We combined that with the budding desire to build a family business and got the notion to start a self-publishing company. This would be a place where we could explore our creative, God-given talents and teach our children to create something lovely they could share with the world.
Fast forward two years, and I have my first little children’s story, Baby Adventurer, that was launched in November 2017.
So when Rae Yost, editor of our local Stevens County Times newspaper, called me for an interview about my new book, you can be sure I was a nervous nelly in the days leading up to it. So many butterflies at the thought of sharing with the public a glimpse into our family’s school “project” and at the excitement of getting to share our story.
I had a week of nerves, and during that time I outlined my thoughts and ideas of what I would like to share with the Stevens County Times readers. Rae came to my home on a Wednesday afternoon and was quite pleasant to visit with. True to a reporter’s nature, she asked me some great questions about Talya Press and my experience with self-publishing for the first time.
We talked about so much more than was included in the article. Over the next week, I want to give you the inside scoop to that interview!
I’ll start by sharing my reaction to the article. First, can I just say that being interviewed for the paper and not knowing what is going to be written makes a girl feel a little exposed? In truth, I think the article did a fine job sticking to the facts (even though a few minor details were off… like saying Noelle is four. She is, in fact, our fourth child, but she is three. Not a big deal.)
Turns out, the article painted a positive picture of what our business is about. It explained the meaning behind “Talya”, which is a word meaning “dew of God”. Dew is considered a blessing because it’s an ever-constant source of water, always life-giving and encouraging, never destructive. We’ve added a tag line to our logo: Storytelling with Purpose. We hope our little stories will be a blessing to families as they read them together, encouraging them to press on in this world, and leaving them with a greater sense of hope.
In the interview, it was brought up that I made reference to God in Baby Adventurer. Rae asked me if all our stories will do that. I explained that I was inspired to write the story this way and wanted to remain true to that inspiration, but other stories will look different in how they encourage. I talked about how one can share the light of Jesus in a story without being abrasive. In fact, there are a number of well-known authors who do just that. Two examples are:
The article stated that I said books can be the dew of God without referencing God or Jesus. I hope that didn’t confuse the readers. I have read a number of children’s book that share solid Biblical truth in an allegorical way. For Christians, it’s important in our own lives that we walk out our faith in action. It’s easy to wear the t-shirt or put the fish on the back of a car, but the proof really comes in how we live out the faith that is so poignant to our life. And by all means, every day is a work in progress, growing us more and more to be like Christ. As was so well stated during our worship at church today, “We are a reflection of Jesus not a perfection of Him.”
In the upcoming posts, I’ll share some of the things Rae and I talked about that didn’t make it in the article. Stay tuned!
