Speaker 1: Hello, and good morning. How are you doing today?
Speaker 2: Great? How are you?
Speaker 1: Absolutely fantastic and very excited to talk with you because
you embrace animals and one that is such my life
and I just I love the way that you're able
to write about them, to share stories, to bring things together.
Your heart is in the right place, you know, Thank.
Speaker 2: You, thank you. Yeah, I have. I have loved writing
these animal stories. It's been really great to sort of
think into an ecosystem and go, Okay, I what would
I what would I notice if I was an animal?
What would I be smelling? What would I be hearing?
What would I be paying attention to? Right? Because it's
not always what I'm paying attention to as a human,
that's for sure. So yeah, it's They've been great fun
to write.
Speaker 1: See I understand that vision because I will do the
same thing when it comes to being out here in
this force that I live in with a copperhead snake.
What is that copperhead snake doing? Why this place? What's
going on? And so I do I become nam And
I don't know if that's because of the martial artists
in me, but I want to be them to see
what the human is doing to them.
Speaker 2: Yeah mm hmmm. Yeah, and just and I love it
too when my animal characters come across a thing they've
never encountered before, yep, and and asking myself, what do
what would they think that thing is? Because everybody understands
a new thing in relation to the things that they
already know. And so yeah, that's a really fun connection
to make. And and and helping kids make those leaps
of inference too, you know, because my readers are pretty young,
so that's their at the beginning of that game, and
that's all exciting. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm glad you said that your readers are young,
because while I was reading the book, I really said
to my wife, I wish my third grade teacher, missus Stephanson,
was here so that she could read this book to me,
because I it's it's that's that kind of a story.
Speaker 2: M Yeah. I really love read aloud ability. I read
my work out loud all the time. First of all,
I will never see the mistakes that I've made it.
I'm much better at sharing the mistakes in seeing it.
But I really want that to be a satisfying reading
out loud experience, because just because the book is good
doesn't mean it really works out loud, but that reading
time in a classroom and in a family, it's precious.
I think the over the years being read to in school,
that is all told from kindergarten through the end of
sixth grade. That's about five hundred hours, and it is
the best writing instruction I have ever received, truly, that
reading aloud in grade school.
Speaker 1: The book we're talking about is a horse named Sky.
How did this book come to you and how did
you maintain the discipline in order to bring this book
all the way to its final page?
Speaker 2: Well, I was, you know, my entire ambition as a
third writer was to become a Pony Express writer myself
nice you know, I mean outside all day, going fast,
excellent pay, very little supervision, was not to left right.
And so when I dug into the Pony Express a
little bit more at the beginning of my research process,
I learned that the Pony Express for the flat sections
of the Pony Express Trail and the east, they just
took race horses out of Tennessee and Kentucky. But those
horses just couldn't hack the mountains at all. But mustangs
are so tough, man, They're just they're cold, hardy, they
can they can run at altitude. They are so fast.
They're who's are really healthy and strong, so they don't
need to be shod, and they're smart. They're just really
smart the hazards that are actually there, and so they
were a natural choice for the Pony Express. So they
took mustangs off the range to run across the rockies
and over the Sierra Nevada.
Speaker 1: When you talk about the mustangs, I mean, I'm from
Montana and the Prior Mountains where the wild mustangs were.
Did you visit that area? How did you get so
close to the mustangs?
Speaker 2: Well, I wasn't able to go to the Prior Range,
but I did in eastern Oregon on the Steam's Mountain Wilderness.
There have been wild horses there for hundreds of years actually,
and it's amazing and it's very remote. I mean, where
I was looking at horses, we were like fifty or
sixty miles from a gas station. So this is very
country out there. But the great thing is that there's
plenty of room for wild horses out there, and so
I had an opportunity to see them. It was during
the pandemic, so I was camping in my little research van,
and I just remember the sun coming up and we
had camps not far from a water hole, and so
you know that beautiful rising sun and then these bands
of horses they just they just appeared out of the
midst of the morning, coming down to the water to drink.
And they're very deferential to each other, you know, they
don't really want conflict, and so each each horse, each
band comes as a group in turn and they wait
for each other. It was amazing to see.
Speaker 1: I study Native American spirituality and which means I study
all animals, and I had to do some research on horses,
and they represent an unexpected adventure in time to free
yourself physically as well as emotionally. And that's what you
just said, you said. As they came in there as
one big family, they left as the family as well.
They love each other and they love to be free.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, they're bonds to each other. Are really are
really beautiful to see, and I like, I remember seeing
a stallion with his group of mayors and then there
was a bachelor band of young stallions nearby and they
were starting to you know, talk trash to each other.
Then they did a little kicking there. But as soon
as one of them reared up and started punching at
another horse, that big stallion fixed those young horses with
a stare. You didn't even say anything, and you would
I've been cut smoking behind the gym. We're like, what
fight us? No, we're all just grazing here. It was
done in a heartbeat. It was amazing to see that
kind of communication and connectedness and respect. It was. Yeah,
it was very not what I was expecting at all. Wow,
But yeah, they're very They're such expressive animals, horses. It
was fascinating to watch them.
Speaker 1: I experienced that with the deer that live in this forest.
We have about nine deer, and and when when the
bucks come walking in, I love to sit there and
just stare at them and to watch their their body movements.
So for you to experience these horses, I just can't
imagine what it was doing to your heart because it's
almost like they're communicating to us as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, and they're they're inspiring and they're so beautiful.
And can you even imagine our history without horses? Where
would we be? No? So yeah, I feel like we
owe them some time and space on the range there.
Speaker 1: I keep waiting for CBS to approach you, to take
your stories of animals and give it, give you a
Sunday Morning show, because I mean, the way that you
share these stories is the way we learn to better
understand the animals. It's not so scientific.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, well, you know, I've had some interesting conversations
with biologists talking about that very question about what is it?
What can we know about animals? And there are good
reasons not to personify animals when you're doing research on them,
But many of these researchers have also said, although personifying
animals has its risks, denying animals intellect and emotion that
we would and motive vation that we would prefer to
reserve for ourselves is equally problem right, And so so
I try and and give them that full range of
social development there when I'm writing about them.
Speaker 1: Now, you've written about Wales, You've written about the wolf,
which which I just love the wolf. What what what's
in your future plans?
Speaker 2: Well, the next book up is going to be called
a wolf called Fire, and it is about brother. I've
gotten so many lovely letters from children who are like,
what about Wanderer's brother? And so I got to think
we've learned some things about how the leadership of wolf
packs goes right. Wolf wolves are very dynamic animals and
and the leadership of a pack changes over pretty regularly.
But there isn't one way to be the leader of
a pack. There isn't only one leadership style. And so
this book gave me an opportunity to show how a
wolf who isn't the biggest or the fastest wolf in
the pack, how he finds his own way to becoming
a leader when he's left behind with the pups of
his home pack.
Speaker 1: I love the idea that you've got such a connection
with your readers that you allow them to reach out
to you.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I love the letters I get from kids. It's
pretty inspiring.
Speaker 1: Because in reality, I mean, you could be that author
that gets them to pick up a writing instrument to
share their own stories. We all have our authors that
really gave us that inspiration.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, and something that I tell kids all the
time too, is that in nineteen seventy three, when I'm
about the age of my reader now, the United States
passed the Wild and Free Roaming Horses and Burrows Protection Act,
which makes it illegal to hunt horses. That makes it
illegal sell their bodies for doug food and provides them
a number of protections under law. That law did not
have any constituency advocating for it except for children. Wildhorse
Annie wrote a bunch of you know, off ed things
in a newspaper, but she only ever heard from children.
So she went around from school to school and talked
to children, and thousands and thousands of children wrote to
their members of Congress, the Governor's, the Department of the
Interior saying wild horses deserve our protection. And so it
is the only law that I know of that was
passed almost entirely on the advocacy of children. And so
something that I always tell to them when I talk
to them is writing is the most power you can have. Right,
It's more it's going to be a while before they vote,
but there is power in writing, and the writing of
children change the laws this country, and that I think
is really important. I want them to have that power.
I want them to use it wisely. And and so
whether they become authors or not, everybody needs to write.
And for most people what they write down is the
most power they will have.
Speaker 1: Now, where can people go to find out more about you?
To find out about all of your books and really
to tap into your energy so they can give you
some love.
Speaker 2: Awesome. I have a website, it's Roseanneperry dot com. I'm
on Instagram sometimes and also just Roseanne dot Perry. And
also children write to me at Annie Bloom's Bookstore as well,
which is where I work. It's my neighborhood independent bookstore.
And so if they want to send me an actual
paper letter, that's a good way to go. Annie Bloom's Bookstore.
Speaker 1: I love it. Please come back to the show anytime
in the future, Roseanne. The door is always going to
be open for you.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Will you be brilliant today?
Speaker 2: Okay, thank you so much. Boe. You take care.