I wrote “Rebecca’s Dream That Wasn’t” in 1978. I lived in a very small town. There was no internet yet. I didn’t know how to proceed. I took my typewritten manuscript and my pencil sketches to a printer in Boca Raton that printed a thousand copies for me. I sold them at dance studios and dancewear shops in my little town. An elementary school where some of those dance kids went made my book and made it into a play. It took 50 years to find my way to a publisher who held my hand through the entire process and helped me make a reality of my dream to get this story out there – much further than my little town.
In this process I thought I should get an illustrator. There is so much to do and learn and remember I thought that would be best. But my children, who came long after my own illustrations of Rebecca, were not happy about that.
They said, “Mom, if you get an illustrator the Rebecca we’ve known all our lives will disappear.” I thought about that for just a few moments and realized they were right so I committed to the illustrations. I don’t consider myself an artist in the true sense of the word. I’m a teacher kind of artist and I knew nothing about digital art. I know barely more now than I did before I started, but this continues to be my greatest challenge as I have begun book #2.