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Speaker 1: Hello, and good morning. How are you doing today?

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Speaker 2: Great? How are you?

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Speaker 1: Absolutely fantastic and very excited to talk with you because

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you embrace animals and one that is such my life

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and I just I love the way that you're able

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to write about them, to share stories, to bring things together.

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Your heart is in the right place, you know, Thank.

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Speaker 2: You, thank you. Yeah, I have. I have loved writing

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these animal stories. It's been really great to sort of

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think into an ecosystem and go, Okay, I what would

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I what would I notice if I was an animal?

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What would I be smelling? What would I be hearing?

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What would I be paying attention to? Right? Because it's

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not always what I'm paying attention to as a human,

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that's for sure. So yeah, it's They've been great fun

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to write.

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Speaker 1: See I understand that vision because I will do the

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same thing when it comes to being out here in

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this force that I live in with a copperhead snake.

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What is that copperhead snake doing? Why this place? What's

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going on? And so I do I become nam And

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I don't know if that's because of the martial artists

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in me, but I want to be them to see

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what the human is doing to them.

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Speaker 2: Yeah mm hmmm. Yeah, and just and I love it

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too when my animal characters come across a thing they've

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never encountered before, yep, and and asking myself, what do

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what would they think that thing is? Because everybody understands

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a new thing in relation to the things that they

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already know. And so yeah, that's a really fun connection

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to make. And and and helping kids make those leaps

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of inference too, you know, because my readers are pretty young,

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so that's their at the beginning of that game, and

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that's all exciting. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I'm glad you said that your readers are young,

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because while I was reading the book, I really said

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to my wife, I wish my third grade teacher, missus Stephanson,

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was here so that she could read this book to me,

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because I it's it's that's that kind of a story.

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Speaker 2: M Yeah. I really love read aloud ability. I read

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my work out loud all the time. First of all,

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I will never see the mistakes that I've made it.

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I'm much better at sharing the mistakes in seeing it.

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But I really want that to be a satisfying reading

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out loud experience, because just because the book is good

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doesn't mean it really works out loud, but that reading

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time in a classroom and in a family, it's precious.

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I think the over the years being read to in school,

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that is all told from kindergarten through the end of

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sixth grade. That's about five hundred hours, and it is

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the best writing instruction I have ever received, truly, that

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reading aloud in grade school.

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Speaker 1: The book we're talking about is a horse named Sky.

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How did this book come to you and how did

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you maintain the discipline in order to bring this book

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all the way to its final page?

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Speaker 2: Well, I was, you know, my entire ambition as a

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third writer was to become a Pony Express writer myself

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nice you know, I mean outside all day, going fast,

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excellent pay, very little supervision, was not to left right.

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And so when I dug into the Pony Express a

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little bit more at the beginning of my research process,

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I learned that the Pony Express for the flat sections

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of the Pony Express Trail and the east, they just

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took race horses out of Tennessee and Kentucky. But those

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horses just couldn't hack the mountains at all. But mustangs

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are so tough, man, They're just they're cold, hardy, they

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can they can run at altitude. They are so fast.

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They're who's are really healthy and strong, so they don't

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need to be shod, and they're smart. They're just really

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smart the hazards that are actually there, and so they

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were a natural choice for the Pony Express. So they

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took mustangs off the range to run across the rockies

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and over the Sierra Nevada.

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Speaker 1: When you talk about the mustangs, I mean, I'm from

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Montana and the Prior Mountains where the wild mustangs were.

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Did you visit that area? How did you get so

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close to the mustangs?

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Speaker 2: Well, I wasn't able to go to the Prior Range,

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but I did in eastern Oregon on the Steam's Mountain Wilderness.

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There have been wild horses there for hundreds of years actually,

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and it's amazing and it's very remote. I mean, where

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I was looking at horses, we were like fifty or

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sixty miles from a gas station. So this is very

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country out there. But the great thing is that there's

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plenty of room for wild horses out there, and so

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I had an opportunity to see them. It was during

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the pandemic, so I was camping in my little research van,

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and I just remember the sun coming up and we

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had camps not far from a water hole, and so

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you know that beautiful rising sun and then these bands

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of horses they just they just appeared out of the

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midst of the morning, coming down to the water to drink.

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And they're very deferential to each other, you know, they

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don't really want conflict, and so each each horse, each

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band comes as a group in turn and they wait

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for each other. It was amazing to see.

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Speaker 1: I study Native American spirituality and which means I study

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all animals, and I had to do some research on horses,

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and they represent an unexpected adventure in time to free

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yourself physically as well as emotionally. And that's what you

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just said, you said. As they came in there as

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one big family, they left as the family as well.

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They love each other and they love to be free.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, they're bonds to each other. Are really are

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really beautiful to see, and I like, I remember seeing

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a stallion with his group of mayors and then there

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was a bachelor band of young stallions nearby and they

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were starting to you know, talk trash to each other.

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Then they did a little kicking there. But as soon

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as one of them reared up and started punching at

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another horse, that big stallion fixed those young horses with

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a stare. You didn't even say anything, and you would

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I've been cut smoking behind the gym. We're like, what

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fight us? No, we're all just grazing here. It was

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done in a heartbeat. It was amazing to see that

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kind of communication and connectedness and respect. It was. Yeah,

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it was very not what I was expecting at all. Wow,

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But yeah, they're very They're such expressive animals, horses. It

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was fascinating to watch them.

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Speaker 1: I experienced that with the deer that live in this forest.

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We have about nine deer, and and when when the

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bucks come walking in, I love to sit there and

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just stare at them and to watch their their body movements.

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So for you to experience these horses, I just can't

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imagine what it was doing to your heart because it's

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almost like they're communicating to us as well.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, and they're they're inspiring and they're so beautiful.

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And can you even imagine our history without horses? Where

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would we be? No? So yeah, I feel like we

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owe them some time and space on the range there.

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Speaker 1: I keep waiting for CBS to approach you, to take

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your stories of animals and give it, give you a

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Sunday Morning show, because I mean, the way that you

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share these stories is the way we learn to better

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understand the animals. It's not so scientific.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, well, you know, I've had some interesting conversations

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with biologists talking about that very question about what is it?

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What can we know about animals? And there are good

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reasons not to personify animals when you're doing research on them,

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But many of these researchers have also said, although personifying

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animals has its risks, denying animals intellect and emotion that

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we would and motive vation that we would prefer to

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reserve for ourselves is equally problem right, And so so

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I try and and give them that full range of

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social development there when I'm writing about them.

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Speaker 1: Now, you've written about Wales, You've written about the wolf,

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which which I just love the wolf. What what what's

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in your future plans?

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Speaker 2: Well, the next book up is going to be called

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a wolf called Fire, and it is about brother. I've

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gotten so many lovely letters from children who are like,

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what about Wanderer's brother? And so I got to think

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we've learned some things about how the leadership of wolf

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packs goes right. Wolf wolves are very dynamic animals and

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and the leadership of a pack changes over pretty regularly.

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But there isn't one way to be the leader of

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a pack. There isn't only one leadership style. And so

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this book gave me an opportunity to show how a

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wolf who isn't the biggest or the fastest wolf in

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the pack, how he finds his own way to becoming

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a leader when he's left behind with the pups of

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his home pack.

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Speaker 1: I love the idea that you've got such a connection

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with your readers that you allow them to reach out

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to you.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. I love the letters I get from kids. It's

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pretty inspiring.

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Speaker 1: Because in reality, I mean, you could be that author

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that gets them to pick up a writing instrument to

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share their own stories. We all have our authors that

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really gave us that inspiration.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, and something that I tell kids all the

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time too, is that in nineteen seventy three, when I'm

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about the age of my reader now, the United States

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passed the Wild and Free Roaming Horses and Burrows Protection Act,

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which makes it illegal to hunt horses. That makes it

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illegal sell their bodies for doug food and provides them

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a number of protections under law. That law did not

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have any constituency advocating for it except for children. Wildhorse

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Annie wrote a bunch of you know, off ed things

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in a newspaper, but she only ever heard from children.

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So she went around from school to school and talked

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to children, and thousands and thousands of children wrote to

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their members of Congress, the Governor's, the Department of the

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Interior saying wild horses deserve our protection. And so it

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is the only law that I know of that was

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passed almost entirely on the advocacy of children. And so

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something that I always tell to them when I talk

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to them is writing is the most power you can have. Right,

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It's more it's going to be a while before they vote,

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but there is power in writing, and the writing of

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children change the laws this country, and that I think

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is really important. I want them to have that power.

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I want them to use it wisely. And and so

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whether they become authors or not, everybody needs to write.

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And for most people what they write down is the

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most power they will have.

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Speaker 1: Now, where can people go to find out more about you?

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To find out about all of your books and really

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to tap into your energy so they can give you

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some love.

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Speaker 2: Awesome. I have a website, it's Roseanneperry dot com. I'm

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on Instagram sometimes and also just Roseanne dot Perry. And

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also children write to me at Annie Bloom's Bookstore as well,

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which is where I work. It's my neighborhood independent bookstore.

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And so if they want to send me an actual

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paper letter, that's a good way to go. Annie Bloom's Bookstore.

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Speaker 1: I love it. Please come back to the show anytime

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in the future, Roseanne. The door is always going to

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be open for you.

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Speaker 2: Thank you.

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Speaker 1: Will you be brilliant today?

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Speaker 2: Okay, thank you so much. Boe. You take care.