I was blessed to have parents who loved to read and reverenced books. Both my parents were school teachers. Dad’s love of adventure took our young family to Wales, Alaska to teach school in a small eskimo village of about a hundred people. The only way in or out of the village was by bush plane or boat. We didn’t have TV so our entertainment was self made along with listening to the radio and reading. I came to love books and using my imagination.
Fast forward many years and I find myself the mother of six. I sometimes tuck my children in at night with a bedtime story I make up on the spot. Each child picks an item to be included in the story, the more outrageous the better. A ghost who steals baseball socks, an ingrown toenail, a singing frog, and a boy catapulted to Mars, are a few child suggestions that have been included in night-time stories, not to mention magic, dragons, and unicorns. To make it interesting, often there will be the restriction of not being able to use any four letter words. Occasionally, we take turns in creating the story by each adding a sentence behind the previous sentence. Sometimes the stories are funny, sometimes really good, or sometimes a total flop. My children often encourage me to write down the stories. After years of encouragement from my children I began to dream of writing books. Though I have a few drafts of those bedtime stories, and the beginning of an American civil war novel, I knew I wanted to start out writing about something dear to my heart. My first book, My Final Ride, is about my dad, Charles Morris Christensen. My second book will also be about my dad. This one will be about his whale hunt. Then on to the civil war novel and dusting off those made-up bedtime stories. The sky’s the limit.