STLCC-Meramec student writes and self publishes book
By: Amber Davis
Senior Staff Writer
Flipping through her self-published children’s book, STLCC-Meramec student Gretchen Daniels lands on a page with bright purple lightning bolts streaking the sky behind a layer of trees laid across the page.
“[The characters in the book are] completely exposed to the elements,” Daniels said. “So, getting the effect to actually look like lighting was the most challenging. I wanted to show the brilliance that lightning can have.”
Last semester, Daniels self-published her own children’s book called, “Hello, Friends My Name is Awenasa,” for the honors contract in her American History 101 class taught by history professor Kay Blalock.
According to Blalock, the standard that honors students do for their contract is to write an extra paper. Once Daniels decided to write a book, Blalock encouraged her to take a step further and get it published.
“I am open to whatever they might want to do,” Blalock said. “Whether it is a paper, I prefer to do something else both for them and me. A project could be anything; I’ve had students turn in artwork before and [Daniels] mentioned in being interested in the Trail of Tears.”
The Trail of Tears, a forced relocation and movement of Native American nations from southeastern parts of the United States during the 1830s, was a main focus of Daniels’s writing. The Trail of Tears stood out to Daniels because of the “parallels of the death marches Jews would have to go on in the Holocaust.”
“But I wanted to do a children’s book because I thought it would be interesting to explore a tragic subject in the perspective of a child’s viewpoint,” Daniels said.
Daniels said that the most interesting thing about writing the book was how Awenasa, the main character, “told her own story”.
“I didn’t expect that. She, in a very general sense, became this real person. I felt like she was sitting next to me dictating what the story was,” Daniels said, pointing to the chair to her left and smiling.
Blalock requested an extra copy of Daniels’s book to show Eric Meyer, an associate English professor and honors program coordinator. Meyer said Daniels was the first student who “went so far” to publish her own book.
“I was so impressed with the effort she put into the project and with the result,” Meyer said. “I am proud of [Daniels] for the way she was able to take her academic research and use it to inform a creative work. The book is beautiful. Beautifully researched, beautifully written and beautifully illustrated, all done by [Daniels].”
The process Daniels took started by pinning down what topic to do in the first week of the fall semester. From there Daniels said she spent most of her time researching more specific events for the Trail of Tears.
“I really just sat down one night and decided to put the story on the page and it flowed organically,” Daniels said.
The route Daniels’ character went through was based on an actual route the Native Americans took throughout the Trail of Tears.
“Deciding my character to start her journey, I chose a specific actual route that a group took,” Daniels said. “And from there I could just follow her path.”
Overall the biggest challenge, according to Daniels, was time management. Writing the book was a balance between studying and writing essays for other classes. Also, getting the book published, Daniels said could take up to three weeks due to printing the book and then shipping.
“It was hard to balance studying for those things with ‘oh, I really need to set aside time to research this,’ so getting down to the wire [felt] like I had to get the project done,” Daniels said. “It was before Christmas so I wanted to allow time if anything was late to make sure I had the project before the semester ended.”
Daniels’s book was created by her but it was Blalock that recommended taking the next step to publishing the book.
“She’s a very good student and I think she should be given the credit for the innovation, the creativity and everything else that went in this,” Blalock said. “It’s truly her project; she has the making and the confidence of a very successful individual. She’s very passionate about her ideas and often that’s what it takes to that next level.”
Daniels said she was overjoyed by the amount of support from the faculty at Meramec, especially Blalock. Another support Daniels had while creating the book was her husband, Dr. Clinton Daniels.
“He is very supportive and encouraging with ideas. I think he would have loved to be the one illustrating it,” Daniels said. “But I was very adamant about getting everything done from beginning to end by myself. I couldn’t ask for more support from my husband, I’m very lucky in that way.”
In the future Daniels said she would like to sell the book to an actual publisher.
“To have that opportunity [to get the book published]W is not something I would push myself to do,” Daniels said. “So, I think that was probably something I’ve taken away from this experience. Just doing an honors contract and all the encouragement and support I got from the faculty has been really wonderful.”
