By Emma Rose Rowan Public Library
Ever since I was a little girl my
favorite activities were reading and drawing. I spent many hours of my youth at
the public library where I could access books that fueled my imagination and
books that instructed me on how to perfect my creations. Rowan Public Library has
many items available for check-out for those with a budding passion to express
themselves artistically:
·
Drawing for Mixed-Media Artists by Carla Sonheim
·
Freehand: Sketching Tips and
Tricks Drawn From Art by
Helen Birch
·
Illustrating children's books :
creating pictures for publication
by Martin Salisbury
·
Writing and illustrating
children's books for publication : two perspectives by Berthe Amoss
In August of 2018, I was fortunate
enough to be able to use my passion for books and art to illustrate and publish
my first book, Life’s Lessons. The
opportunity presented itself when I met a man named Ray Delane Bost of
Rockwell, NC. It took us no time at all to realize that, although we are an
unlikely pair, we can work well together to help one another make our dreams a
reality.
Ray’s dream is to share his poetry
with the world. Ray began writing poetry as a hobby when he was just a
teenager. He published his first book of poetry in 2017 which is entitled This and That. This and that can be
found at Rowan Public Library [811.54 BOS] nestled amongst an array of lovely
collections of poetry. This summer, Ray was ready to publish his second
collection of poetry and planned for it to be bigger, longer, hard-covered, and
designed with his vision in mind.
My dream is to illustrate and
publish books. I have always held a deep admiration for talented and creative
illustrators such as Dr. Seuss, Gris Grimly, and Brett Helquist, to name just a
few favorites whose work can be found at Rowan Public Library. Yet, I had
always felt that illustrating my own book
was a bit of a pipe-dream.
Using Ray’s words and my ability to
tame the technology necessary for the project, we decided we would make Life’s Lessons a reality. When Ray
learned that I had always wanted to illustrate, he offered for me to design
images for each of his poems so that I too, could have my name on the cover of
a book. I am a librarian and so I am surrounded by books, at work and at home,
yet none of them have my name on them…unless you count my worn copy of the
children’s book Are You My Mother by
P.D. Eastman which actually has my name all over it…but it is in crayon and I
wrote it myself when I was first learning to write my name. [Warning: don’t try
this at home, kids!]
Needless to say, I accepted and
began imagining and sketching out my designs while keeping each poem in mind. I
will always cherish those warm summer nights I spent sitting on my back porch
pouring over my designs and characters, drawing and redrawing them with a smile
on my face.
Along the journey, Ray and I
discovered that we had other passions in common: a compassion and love for K-9
companions, public libraries, and playing the harmonica.
Ray and I, are so proud to present
the final product to the world which can be found at Lulu.com [product ID:
23762636]. Poetry by Ray Delane Bost. Illustrations by Emma Marie Rose. Published
by my rookie publishing company Red March
Publishing through Lulu.com.
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