Author/ Editor Interview: Pat Gaines

Pat Gaines worked 22 years in the Lincoln County, Oklahoma courthouse, and retired in 2003 after running the County Election Board Office for many years. Pat and her husband Jerry have two grown children and three grandchildren. She is a member of the Oklahoma Writers Federation, Inc., Web Writing Wonders, New England Ancestors, Daughters of the American Revolution, American Legion Auxiliary, and the Lincoln County Historical Society. She is the current Senior Editor for Dragonfly Publishing, Inc.

Her books include…
O. O. Octopus: Sheriff of Blue Ribbon Sound
The Journal of Amos Hannah

TELL US ABOUT YOUR PATH TO PUBLICATION. HOW DID YOU GO FROM WORKING IN A COURTHOUSE TO BECOMING AN AUTHOR?
My daughter, Terri Branson, started her publishing company in about 1997. We had the journal that belonged to my grgrgrandfather, Amos Hannah, and we both thought that it would be good to put the journal into print. So I set about trying to read and interpret the journal text. It took me five years to get the text ready to publish. Finding a publisher was not a problem. I retired from Lincoln County in 2003 and the Journal was published in 2005.

HOW DID YOU KNOW THAT YOUR GREAT-GREAT GRANDFATHER’S JOURNAL WOULD MAKE A WONDERFUL EYEWITNESS ACOUNT OF THE 19TH CENTURY? WAS IT DIFFICULT TO SHARE SUCH A PERSONAL ACCOUNT? WHY OR WHY NOT?
I read some of the journal during the years that I was growing up and found it to be fascinating and full of early American History. We had many family members who wanted to read the journal but it was too old and fragile to be passed around and read. That is initially why I chose to put it into print. After I started typing the text, I realized what a real treasure it was. In his daily entries he tells what the weather is, what is going on in politics, about his barrel making business as he was a cooper by trade.
He traveled a lot trying to sell his barrels. He took them mostly on the Indiana canal system. He tells about buying cloth and thread at a local mill, about buying meat from a neighbor who had butchered. He tells about looking for berries and melons, going fishing, going to watch some men play cards.
Nearly every day there was an entry about something I didn’t understand like going to a Cass and Butler poll raising. For days he talked about a great zodical light in the heavens that could be seen in the daylight, some supposing it was a comet. At each point he talked about these things I have inserted an explanation with the text so that the reader will know what he is talking about. He tells about how much clothing, food, boots, patterns, stage coach travel cost.
In 1850 he goes to the gold rush via Panama. In a four page letter written from Panama on May 31, 1850 he tells all about going there, how he traveled, what everything cost, how people were sick there, how they got tickets to Panama but couldn’t get on the California. He described an old fort that was from the time of the buccaneers where broken guns lay on the ground. I could go on and on about the information included in his journal. For an author who is writing in the time period before the Civil War, this journal is a treasure of information about people’s daily lives.
No, it was not hard to share his personal account of his life because it was all so long ago that there is not information about anyone who is still alive. He did not include anything of a personal nature in his journal. He did give himself a lecture on the day he was married about his new responsibilities as a husband. I quote, “Amos, your life is different from what always has been. Love your wife always which will be your duty. Treat her with that kindness and affection you ought. See and feel for her in all her distresses.” That’s as intimate as it gets.

YOU’RE CURRENTLY A SENIOR EDITOR AT DRAGONFLY PUBLISHING WHICH IS OWNED BY YOUR DAUGHTER, TERRI BRANSON. CAN YOU SHARE WITH US A LITTLE OF HOW DRAGONFLY PUBLISHING CAME ABOUT?
Terri worked for an online publisher as an editor for several years in the early 1990’s and then decided to open her own publishing company.

WHAT’S IT LIKE WORKING ALONGSIDE YOUR DAUGHTER?
It works out fine. We live about 60 miles apart and most of our work is done by electronic files. Sometimes we get together to work but not often.

DO YOU THINK BEING AN EDITOR HAS IMPROVED YOUR OWN WRITING- WHY OR WHY NOT?
Yes, of course it has helped me. Terri had to teach me how she wanted her books edited. One of the hardest things for me to get straight in my head was “point of view.” She is a stickler about authors keeping point of view.

DRAGONFLY PUBLISHING RECENTLY ANNOUNCED THEIR 2009 PICTURE BOOK CONTEST. WHY DOES DRAGONFLY PUBLISHING HOLD THIS CONTEST?
The first contest we held was in 2008 for authors and illustrators of Children’s Color Picture Books. The response from authors was pretty good but we had few entries from illustrators. The contest was my idea because all submissions from authors come to me first. We have to keep our submissions closed most of the time because we get too many and we just can’t physically handle the volume. There are lots of good authors out there wanting to get their books published and so few opportunities unless you want to self-publish. Both Terri and I felt that this contest would give some of those aspiring authors an opportunity to get their books in print. Good illustrators are hard to find sometimes
especially by small publishing companies because we can’t afford to pay big money for their work. This illustrator’s contest was a way to find new illustrators wanting to get into the Children’s Color Picture Book market.

HOW DIFFICULT IS IT TO NARROW DOWN ALL OF THE SUBMISSIONS TO THREE WINNERS? WHEN WILL LAST YEAR’S WINNERS BOOKS BE AVAILABLE?
It is very difficult because most of the stories entered were good. One of the first things we did was go through the entries and take out all that did not follow the contest guidelines. Some of the stories are so good that they just stand out. Last year’s winner, “Alley Lou,” was like that. The first time I read the story I knew that it would be very hard to beat. We narrowed the entries down to ten. Picking three from that ten was really hard. We wound up offering a contract to the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners in 2008. Normally we couldn’t do that. These winning authors will have books in hand by the end of this summer or before.

TELL US A LITTLE ABOUT YOUR OWN BOOK, O.O. OCTOPUS.
We have three grandchildren, two boys and a girl. When they were younger we would keep them in the summers quite a bit going after them and taking them home. Like most kids they fussed and poked at each other, which drove me crazy. I would tell them stories as we traveled to keep them quiet. O.O. Octopus was one of those stories.

WHAT WAS THE INSPIRATION FOR O.O. OCTOPUS?
I really don’t remember an inspiration for the story about the octopus. Just came into my mind. I told stories about a caterpillar, a snake, a mouse, etc. I have several stories about Little Wahoo, an Indian boy who lived on Quapaw Creek close to where we live. He had many adventures.
O.O. Octopus was named for my grandfather, Oscar Owen Sutton. I wanted to call him Oscar the Octopus but there was already a book by that name so he became O.O. Octopus.

WHAT IS YOUR ADVICE FOR ASPIRING AUTHORS?
Authors stay with it and don’t give up. Try publishing with a small publishing company to get started.
As for the contest, follow the rules. Make sure you manuscript is clean. Tell your story in such a way that illustrations can be done to match the storyboarded pages. Remember your chances are as good as anyone’s.