Imagination Playground
This is where it all began. My first born son was five years old, and running through the fountain at the Imagination Playground, in Camana Bay, Grand Cayman. It looked very magical as the fountain would spray the water up at intervals, and my son and other children would run through. There were also large blue foam blocks that children used to build their pretend cars and whatever other objects they chose. Even just knowing the place was called the Imagination Playground, gave me that feeling of creativity.
This was also a time when my son was doing a lot of required art work during his preschool, as part of the school curriculum. So, I built on the idea of a character who would draw and color, and imagine his drawings becoming real.
Drawing from my own childhood experiences, I also remembered that as a child, an older family member would often encourage me to write poems as a way to handle my frustrations, and this is a concept I have built in to the Joe Dreamer books, that children can channel their frustrations into creative pursuits. I do this as an adult too, by spending much time journaling and writing books.
People are often curious about how I ended up writing so many books. In truth, I originally wrote just one story. But when I submitted it for critique, the editor felt there was too much happening in a single manuscript and suggested breaking it into multiple books. That one story eventually became the Joe Dreamer series.
Book 4 of the Joe Dreamer series is now in the works, and will launch soon. I am looking forward to sharing Joe’s latest adventures with you in this new book. Stay tuned.
Much love,
Karlene