One step closer to publishing “I Remember Fishing with Dad”

I’m one step closer to publishing the children’s book I wrote and illustrated with my dad called “I Remember Fishing with Dad”.

The last couple of weeks have been a whirlwind of getting the illustrations completed. I need to give a special shout out to my dad who has worked hard at this. He painted a few new paintings, and tweaked a number of old ones. I’m including one illustration he did just today of seagulls feeding on herring.

It has been really fun to work with dad, now over many years, on this project.

There have been others who have helped. Among them, Matt Hale who helped design the original cover and layout. My friend, Paul Baumgarten, took all the photos. Over the last couple of weeks he’s worked with my mom, who has been taking photographs of the updated paintings and new paintings and sending them to Paul.

We are shooting to have all the text, bio material, illustrations, in to the publisher before the end of September. The publisher thinks that we should be able to have the books completed by December 1^st, just before Christmas and the holidays.

Here is a little preview of the story from the introduction.

My hope in I Remember Fishing with Dad is to show how important sacred memories are in the forming of children. Fyodor Dostoyevsky once wrote this about good memories in his classic The Brothers Karamazov,

“My dear children, perhaps you will not understand what I’m going to say to you now, for I often speak very incomprehensibly, but, I’m sure, you will remember that there’s nothing higher, stronger, more wholesome and more useful in life than some good memory, especially when it goes back to the days of your childhood, to the days of your life at home. You are told a lot about your education, but some beautiful, sacred memory, preserved since, is perhaps the best education of all.”

Through story and art I weave together the memories of a boy who grew up on an Island in the Pacific Northwest; whose memories form him as the man he is today. I hope many parents will be inspired to also make such sacred memories with their children.