WINDSOR JUNCTION: An author who calls Windsor Junction home is getting to live out a dream – having her first novel published.
Heidi Tattrie Rushton penned Pet Tales over the past few years and has seen it hit the print run and now on shelves at various local bookstores and available online.
Tattrie Rushton, who volunteers in the community, said it’s been a dream of hers to see a novel she wrote in print.
“I’m so thrilled and grateful for everyone who pre-ordered Pet Tales or will be buying one,” she said during an interview recently at Fall River Dairy Queen.
ADVERTISEMENT:
Pet Tales is one that is for those in middle school, or rather ages 9-12-years-old. It’s about a girls who struggles with social anxiety, so she spends a lot of her time at a local animal shelter, volunteering.
“She makes up all of these imaginary back stories for each of the animals,” said Rushton.
Some of the stories the girl writes indicates how this animal might have been an astronaut before it came to the shelter; or another was a secret spy.
“She then discovers that the shelter may be closing so she wants to help save, but she’s not sure she can do it with her anxiety,” said Rushton. “A friend of the girls comes along and suggests using the stories.
“She wasn’t so keen on that, but they have to use their skills to work and save the shelter.”
ADVERTISEMENT:
Rushton said she’s always writing. The first draft for pet Tales was done in December 2020, and she entered it into a contest with the Writers Federation of Nova Scotia to see how it did. It won.
“I am always writing things,” she said. “I thought that maybe it had some legs after it won.”
That’s when she started working at editing it more and editing more.
“I even added a whole new section,” she said.
That new section included parts on local author Margaret Marshall Saunders, and a story she had done fit well with her story, so she edited that into Pet Tales.
“By the time all that was done it was probably another couple of years before it was ready and I started to send it around to different publishers,” said Rushton.
She connected with Trap Door Books (an imprint of Nevermore Press) based in Lunenburg, who published the book, and they were working on getting it out since.
The day she sat down with The Laker News in Fall River was the official book launch day.
ADVERTISEMENT:
Pet Tales is available at any local book stores like Indigo, Chapters, online at Amazon, and a variety of other book stores as well.
“They all carry it,” she said.
You can also get it here: https://www.indiebookstores.ca/book/9781777554996/
How is Rushton feeling now that the novel is done, printed and available for people to grab it with their own hands.
“It’s very exciting and very surreal,” she said. ‘I’ve been writing since I was eight-years-old. I decided then I wanted to be an author, but life went in different directions.”
She said it’s exciting to see Pet Tales out there.
“I wanted to write a book that had a character that had anxiety , but it’s not the story but its just a characteristic of her.
ADVERTISEMENT:
“ Our life is not about our mental health, it’s a part of who we are, and we find ways to live with in and manage.
“I wanted it to be that it was just part of her, and she uses different coping skills to get through it.
“The story is about this girl who wants to help this animal shelter who has anxiety and manages things with it.”
Rushton hopes it brings about awareness from kids who have anxiety and others who don’t to understand it better.
She is planning to do some book signings coming up.
Rushton is having a launch at Woozles on May 14; May 18 in Lunenburg; and in Sydney on May 25.
Check out her Author Heidi Tattrie Rushton Facebook page for more updates.
