~August 18, 2022:

What a wonderful, magical day it was two days ago, August 16, at the Hampton Beach Children’s Festival where I read my story, “Rudy and the Sea Urchin Special” to a group of very bright, engaging children. After storytime, we hosted a coloring raffle got lots of entries. The children chose one drawing from the book to color and entered it in the raffle. Entries for a coloring raffle are simply mixed up in a box and winners are pulled out of the box randomly. Artwork is not “judged.” Winners of the raffle went home with various versions of “Rudy and the Sea Urchin Special” including a hard cover, paperback and coloring book.

The coloring pages these children produced are so wonderful that I simply MUST share them here for the world at large to see! A heartfelt thank you to all who entered. I am thrilled to see such wonderful artwork. While the children’s names have been deleted to protect their privacy, a special shout out goes to Girls Inc–a great program whose motto is “Inspiring girls to be strong, smart and bold.” They succeed in their mission!

The first four pictures below are the winners of the coloring raffle. Such a nice variety! All of the children who entered did a great job.

~August 1, 2022:

I climbed a mountain today! Well, Meghan did all the work but I encouraged her every step of the way 🙂

~July 4, 2022:

It’s so nice to see the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) recognize the hard work of self-publishers with their July Recommended Reading Lists of books by members who have self-published. Sometimes we have stories to tell, creative ideas that we know in our heart simply must see the light of day, but try as we might, we just can’t find the key to unlock the traditional route. So, we take a deep breath and step onto an alternative one. The alternate route is rocky, lonely, scary, grueling, fun, fulfilling, thrilling and worth every step. We walk that route because we are compelled. We do it because something in us–like, say, an otter named Rudy who won’t go away–makes us, because there’s a very important message that must be shared. We do it for the love of the process and the craft. We don’t do it to get rich, or famous or even just recognizable. But sometimes, it’s just lovely to be acknowledged. Rudy can be found on the SCBWI Reading List in the Picture Book Section in the link below.

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~June 15, 2022:

I am so pleased that James (left) and Jared (right) who also work at sea, each bought copies of Rudy and the Sea Urchin Special for their daughters. It’s heartwarming to know they are teaching their children the wonders of the sea not just with the book, but with their own wealth of experience.

~ April 22, 2022:

WE’RE HERE!!!! Rudy and the Sea Urchin Special is finally finished and available to purchase. The paperback is first and the hardcover and ebooks will soon follow.

~Rudy and Opal

~ April 2, 2022:

Hi Folks, Opal here. I made the cover! Me, just a little old jewell-topped snail found her way to the cover of a book. We just received the hard cover author proofs today. Very exciting! You have to look hard, but there I am down on the lower right. See?

~Opal the jewell-topped snail

~ March 18, 2022

It’s finally happening. After years of poking and prodding the human named Meghan Piercy, I managed to convince her to finish writing and illustrating this book about me and my friends. I came to her with the idea in 1988 when she saw one of my marine mammal friends, an elephant seal, in big trouble with marine debris–that’s what we call human trash in the ocean. Meghan worked on the story, sometimes a little, sometimes a lot, sometimes hardly at all. Eventually she realized that I wasn’t going away, so she might as well deliver this first story to the world so we can move on to the next one. We hope you enjoy our efforts!

~Rudy the sea otter