Speaker 1: Hello and good morning, Tracy. How are you doing today?
Speaker 2: Hello and good morning Errol. I'm doing great. Thank you,
it's nice to meet you. Oh.
Speaker 1: I gotta tell you, man, with the reality of life
right now, I need a dragon master because we've got
the remnants of a hurricane, Debbie moving through our system
right now, and it's like, I need me a dragon
master to get me out of this storm.
Speaker 2: Oh you sure do. Oh my goodness, hope you're safe.
That's a little bit scary, Debbie. Something.
Speaker 1: I love the fact that you were connected to young
adult readers, and the reason why is because I need
them to be great writers of tomorrow and they need
people like yourself, Tracy, to kind of put that path
in play. Because we all grew up with an author
that we were inspired by, and that's how we became
writers ourselves exactly.
Speaker 2: And in my case, it wasn't just the author that
I read who inspired me. But in second grade, my teacher,
my wonderful teacher, Missus Lukowski, she invited Leonard Tessler, who's
a great author, to come to the class. He wrote
a book called Mister Pine's Purple House, and my eight
year old self something clicked because here was a human
being who was an author. An author wasn't just a
name on a page, right, And it really cemented the
idea for me that that was something I could aspire
to be, that I could take my love of reading
and writing and possibly become an author today. And so
I think about that day in my second grade class
room quite a lot.
Speaker 1: Well, second grade was the same year that I my teacher,
missus Keith. She knew that I wanted to do things,
and she gave me subjects to write about. And instead of,
you know, doing different things like the other students were doing,
she said, I need you to write. You just write.
That's that's your going to be your strength, be a writer.
Speaker 2: Oh isn't that wonderful? Like how amazing for you to
have a teacher who recognized that in you and encouraged you.
That's fantastic.
Speaker 1: Now when you have a book like this one, you know,
and you know Rise of the Dragon Master, what's so
inspiring is that you see these pictures inside your head
long before we receive them. What's going on inside that
ahead of yours?
Speaker 2: Well, let me take you back to the beginning. So
the very first book in the series is called Rise
of the Earth Dragon. There are currently twenty six books
in the series, and a new guide to all of
those twenty six books is out today. And so the
idea behind Dragon Masters is that it's serious fantasy for
emergent readers. These are readers who are just discovering chapter books,
and historically that's when a lot of kids get discouraged
because they're going from books with a lot of pictures
and very little texts to books with no pictures and
a lot of texts. And so the Scholastic Branches series
for emergent readers has art on every page, shorts, captures
that move quickly, a lot of action. And so I
was brought in a little over ten years ago and said,
all right, so and you come up with a serious
fantasy idea about dragons. And the answer was yes, please
lets me dry because I've always been fascinated with magical
creatures and so for me, the process began with researching
different types of dragons from all around the world and
figuring out how could I create a story not just
about traditional fire breathing dragons, but maybe a dragon who
lives deep in the earth and can't breathe fire, and
maybe a very peaceful water dragon. You know, how can
I bring these kinds of dragons? And that turned into
a series where in every book we meet a different
dragon and a new dragon master. And a dragonmaster is
an eight year old kid who's been chosen by a
magical stone to connect with the dragon. And so, you know,
every time I down to write, it's a new challenge
for my imagination. I usually start by coming up with
a new dragon and figuring out what's the most exciting,
fun story I can tell about this creature.
Speaker 1: See, that's inspiring me. I mean, this is just the
fact that you toy around with dragons, because I mean
even in my adult life, I mean it's like I
believe in them. I know they exist, They're watching me
all the time, and you're proving it true.
Speaker 2: Thank you. I mean, I do meet a lot of
people of all ages who are fascinated by dragons and
definitely believe in dragons. And I think tapping into dragon
energy makes people feel powerful, right, It makes people feel
like they can do anything, and so I think that's
a great type of energy to tap into.
Speaker 1: Now, being a martial artist, that we always learned that
Bruce Lee said, never let anybody see your studies, because
then all of a sudden you now have an enemy.
So in this book you talk about the dragon master
and what's needed, what's required. Bruce Lye, what would he
say about this, because we're going to learn how to
become a dragon master.
Speaker 2: Oh well, it's not a real thing secret and it's
something anyone can aspire to. Basically, you have to be
chosen by the magical dragon stone, and a dragon stone
will read your heart to see if you have the
heart of a dragon master. And what that means is
that you have three very basic qualities. The first is kindness,
the second is curiosity because dragon masters need to be
curious about people around them and the world around them.
And the third is the ability to work on a team.
And if you have those three qualities, you can have
all kinds of other qualities. You can be silly, you
can be impatient, you can be grumpy, you can be goofy,
but you can still be you can still be a dragonmaster.
Speaker 1: Wow. I mean you cover all the things that a
child or a young adult needs to understand in real life.
I mean you bring the honest see, but you're doing
it in a way that shares it through a story.
Speaker 2: I have to say I didn't necessarily start out to
do that, but it's the result of the story crafting.
My main characters are kids. They're thrown into situations where
they have to solve problems right, and in the end
of the book, we want them to succeed. So in
order to succeed, you have to model certain behaviors right.
You have to overcome your fears. You have to maybe
learn that it's okay to fail and you can try again.
You have to learn how to exchange ideas with other people.
So all of those ideas just sort of came up
naturally as I was writing the series in order for
these kids to be successful at what they do.
Speaker 1: Wow, where can people go to find out more about you,
especially all of these books that you've been a part of.
Speaker 2: Sure, So I have a website Tracywest dot com and
that's Tracy with an Ey. That's the best way to
find me, or you can find me on Facebook at
author Tracy West or the other socials at Tracy West Books,
Dan Tracy with an Ey. I love it.
Speaker 1: Please come back to the show anytime in the future.
The door is always going to be open for you. Row.
Speaker 2: I appreciate that so much. This is a really fun conversation.
Speaker 1: Thanks Will, you'd be brilliant today.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm gonna try. I'm gonna channel my Dragonmaster Den