LW resident publishes kids’ book

by Patty Marsters

pattym@lwsb.com

Like many people, Patty Steponovich of Mutual 10 gained a new skill during the pandemic shutdowns. But unlike many, hers led to her first published book.

“Ginger the Clumsy Dog” is the slightly embellished, mostly true tale of a real dog. During one pre-pandemic weekend visit with her sister, Mary Johnson, Steponovich noticed Johnson’s dog Ginger was doing things that looked rather clumsy. “We laughed about it,” she recalls, “and I told Mary she should write a book about it.” Mary responded that she wasn’t a writer and suggested her sister be the author. They both laughed it off.

“And then the pandemic hit,” Steponovich says.

An art teacher at her alma mater, St. Anthony High School in Long Beach, Steponovich suddenly found herself with some extra free time. She read books, watched TV, and spent countless hours with her feline friends Lily and Harry. “And I was in a relationship with my refrigerator,” she adds with a gentle laugh. But she wanted to find something more to do.

“I jotted down what happened, what really happened,” she recalls. “And then I padded it with more sentences.”

She then went online in search of a publisher who would accept the work of a new writer. There were rejection letters, but a year later, she heard from a publisher who said she was interested. “She connected me with another publisher, who really guided me through the process,” Steponovich says.

Part of that process was finding an illustrator. Though Steponovich is an artist herself, illustrating children’s books isn’t her forte. So she sent some text from the book to a few artists she found online, and she picked Pearly Lim, “a sweet gal from Indonesia.”

Steponovich worked with Lim to include slices of reality, such as family members appearing in background photos and a blue vase that resembles the urn holding the ashes of Johnson’s late husband, Doug.

Earlier this month, “Ginger the Clumsy Dog” was released by Euclid House and is now available via Amazon. The colorful paperback features Mary and her three rescue dogs, Joey, Zeke and, of course, Ginger.

“In a million years, I never would have thought I would do this,” Steponovich says. “If we hadn’t been in a pandemic, it probably wouldn’t have happened. It was just a project that made me happy. . . . It’s a joyful, wonderful book.”

Now available via Amazon