Oscar the Osprey follows a newly hatched osprey who has difficulty relating to his peers because of his handicap and must face a threatening winter world alone. What was the inspiration for the setup to your story?

The inspiration goes back over 35 years, and emanated from a trip to the Royal Gorge in Colorado with my family.  While walking across the gorge suspension bridge that was 1000 feet above the Arkansas River, my oldest son remarked that it would terrible for a bird to be afraid of heights.  He sympathized with the problem because he had a fear of heights.  The story about a bird having that problem was the idea that I found intriguing and it led to finally formally publishing the book 30 year later.

Oscar is a charming character. What were some driving ideals behind his character’s development?

A good children’s book should have, in my opinion, likeable characters, a strong moral behind the story, and be readable on multiple levels.  That is, it should be interesting to a non-reading young listener, challenging to a young reader, and interesting to a grownup.  Dr. Suess was a master of this technique.  I tried to combine those elements in telling the story about Oscar’s handicap and how he learned how to deal with it.  The moral of Oscar’s story is that we all have to overcome hurdles in life, not through miracles, but through individual ingenuity.  

What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?

Sibling rivalry, overcoming personal limitations, dealing with life’s dangers, handling ridicule… all common problems of growing into adulthood.

What is the next book that you are working on and when will it be available?

I’ve written two additional books (through AuthorHouse) in the Oscar series, the second one focuses on his relationship with his brother and the third with his sister.  All of the books, I hope, followed the basic premises of the first Oscar book.  The books are available on-line through AuthorHouse, Amazon and Barnes & Noble.  I had originally planned on completing a trilogy, but now I’m working on a fourth book in the Oscar series, which should be available in early 2021.

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