New poetry book, Satyrs Are Cool

My daughter, Jennifer Wilson, and I have a new poetry book out that we co-wrote! The book is called Satyrs Are Cool: Poems of Mythological Creatures. We are very excited about this new poetry book. It is the second one we have written together!

So how did this book come about? Last year, Jennifer and I had something pretty awesome happen: A poetry book that we co-wrote, Dogs Forever! Poems for the Dog Person, was published. I have already talked at length about how this was special for Jennifer because it made her dream of being an author and illustrator come true, so there is no need to go over that again here. But one thing I never mentioned was something we decided to do after all the excitement died down about our first poetry book together: We decided we’d do another poetry book together! Not only this, but we would do one a year. I told Jennifer I am already publishing one of my poetry books every year (the next one will be out in the Fall), and so she thought maybe it would be a good idea for us to do one together a year, too. After we decided on this, I asked her, What kind of a poetry book should we do next? After some thought, Jennifer, who is a big fan of Greek mythology, suggested we do a poetry book about mythological creatures.

The two of us got to work. We made a list of all kinds of mythological creatures we could think of. I pondered narrowing our list down to one type of mythological creature – like Greek mythology, since that was Jennifer’s thing – but she wanted to write a poem about a vampire and a goblin. So I decided, why don’t we just include different types of mythological creatures? Instead of a certain group of them. I scoured web sites listing different kinds of mythological creatures from various types of cultures and mythologies and added ones we liked to the list.

Next, we decided on how many poems each of us would write, and that number ended up being 12 poems each. (The book had to be at least 24 pages, anyway.) From there, we made a list of what creatures we wanted to write poems about based on what was on the master list of creatures, then compared them to weed out any of them that was already taken. Jennifer insisted on the vampire poem, as well as the goblin and centaur. So after we each revised our choices to where we each had our own group of creatures to write about, we started writing.

After we finished writing the poems, I typed them up then edited them. I submitted the manuscript to GMTA Publishing, and they accepted it. But then GMTA later decided they didn’t want the book after all and canceled the contract. So I decided to self-publish the book through Createspace.

First, I had to get the manuscript edited. Since I had such a positive experience with my poetry books at Gypsy Shadow Publishing (who still keeps my poetry books on the market even though they no longer publish poetry, and I love them for that!), I contacted the editor, Denise Bartlett, about editing my poetry books. We worked something out with that and I sent her the Satyrs manuscript. She was surprisingly fast editing it! And she did an amazing job with the edits, too.

With the edits complete, I moved forward with production.

When I first put the manuscript together, I arranged the poems into an order that seemed to go well together. During production, however, I had to arrange the poems again to accommodate the illustrations Jennifer created for the book. (I tried to keep the poem and illustrations together in the final book, but things messed up somehow on one of the poems and illustrations and since I’d already fixed it five times, I didn’t have enough energy left to give it another go because it might mess other things up again! Since this was for one of my poems, I let that go. No biggie!)

Once it was finally set up in book form, I put the cover together. Jennifer had created an illustration to go with the “Satyrs Are Cool” poem so I used that one for the cover image. (I have made it a point to try to use one of her illustrations for the poetry books we co-write as well as my children’s books she illustrates, but she created the cover illustration specifically for Dogs Forever! – which is currently in the process of being put back onto the market since that book’s contract was canceled, as well.) Jennifer helped out in creating the cover, selecting style, font and colors that she wanted. Since this book was “her” idea and her book, too, I wanted her to go over the cover before I submitted everything for review.

After the manuscript and cover passed review, I reviewed the electronic proof of the book and ordered a print proof, just to be on the safe side. Everything turned out good so I launched it onto Amazon. It went live on the Createspace site on my birthday! Very cool this book’s publication date ended up being on my birthday. Yay! (Jennifer has another children’s book she has written which she wants to get published and I’m thinking of trying to get that one out on HER birthday.)

So Satyrs Are Cool was published and we are very happy our second co-written poetry book is now out. Woo-hoo! Thank you to Denise Bartlett for her wonderful editing work on this book!

Here is the cover for the book:

And here is the blurb:

Goblins, vampires, Cyclops and a zombie bodyguard! If you enjoy mythology or reading about Mythological creatures, Satyrs Are Cool will show these creatures and others in a new light through verse.


Here is a sample poem. This one was written by Jennifer:


The Siren

The Siren is the water queen.
Yet not one has e'er been seen.
She is devious, she plays quite hard
Around her tricks be on your guard.
Her face so pretty, her song so nice
But follow her singing, and you'll pay the price.

(Copyright 2013 by Jennifer Wilson)


Finally, here is where you can check it out on Amazon. It is available for Kindle as well as print.

We’re very excited about this book and we look forward to getting started on our next one!