My husband has published for academic journals and law reviews and has also self-published a debate handbook for policy and public forum debate through his organization The Great Debate. With his experience in the self-publishing world I felt confident that I could follow suit. WRONG!

Any true children’s book about UVA must include the mascot, the logos, and the colors, of course. All of which are trademarked, copyrighted, or both! Having Cavalier Man, the sabers, and orange and blue were absolutely necessary, so I needed to work with the College Licensing Company (CLC) who held the rights.

The CLC has agreements with universities across the country so that a company can obtain a license and use the trademarks and copyrights of that university in exchange for royalties paid to the school. This all makes perfect sense, so I began to research how to obtain a local CLC license. The long and the short of it is that it is not particularly easy for a company to obtain a license, let alone an individual.

Since I had not incorporated, did not have a prior sales track record, did not have a liability insurance policy upwards of $1M, and did not have a sample work product of my book on hand to send the CLC, I considered alternative avenues. Instead of obtaining the license as an individual and self-publishing, I could publish through a company that already held a CLC license for UVA.  I concluded that such a company would be my new path forward!

Once we settled into our new home, I threw myself into my project by recording all of the ideas, pictures, and rhymes I had been mulling over for months. The book absolutely had to rhyme. I find rhyming children’s books to be the most fun for an adult to read (rhyming attracts me to books I want to read to my son and attracted me to books I wanted to read to the students at Success Preparatory Academy in New Orleans). Rhyming books are also an excellent way to help little ones to develop an ear for like and rhyming words.  

It is a serious thing to represent an institution almost 200 years old, whose numerous alumni have held varied positions of responsibility and power.  On top of that, I wanted to convey a universal college experience to small children. The end product had to be timeless, sincere, and engaging.

With an appreciation of the task before me, I set to work. Many of the verses came easily and I loved every second of the creative process. The difficulty is that children’s books cannot be too long. I wanted to include so many aspects of UVA and the college experience to excite and introduce little ones to the rich traditions and culture of my beloved University, but it had to be short enough not to lose the little ones’ attention. The beautiful thing about writing is that you get to write, edit, re-write, mull, write more, edit more, and continue tweaking your creation. It is a wonderful process!

With the fun part of the book process flying, it was time to focus on the other part of the process that tends to be less exciting: publishing.

The resolution to write a UVA children’s book differs greatly from actually writing it. Our little man was only a couple weeks old when I decided to pursue writing a book for him, but as it turns out, I had significantly less “me” time as a mom than when I was working 60 hours a week. As the months passed the resolution remained, meanwhile JJ began rolling, eating solids, and crawling.

Next came the big move. As time always seems to do when you are enjoying life, it flew, and our two years in New Orleans were over. We took one last look at Uptown, our shotgun house, and happy life there, packed up the dog, Grits, cat, Corn Muffin, three live oak trees, our son and piled into our Expedition for the 1,000 mile drive. Our trek led us to Richmond, VA and the first home we owned. My husband took a position to practice law at McGuireWoods. Oh it was good to be back in Virginia, but so sad to say goodbye to NOLA! But with my parents right up the street from us in Midlothian, VA, it was amazing how much more “me” time I now had.

After boxes were unpacked, walls painted, and rooms decorated, I used my “me” time to work on my overdue book. There was much to do!