My Barking Inspiration

His name is Dorian (after Oscar Wilde’s character). He almost died of starvation and flea bites, before we found him. And now he is famous!

One spring morning in 2006, I sat on the floor with mounds of books and a buzzing idea. ‘Come on’, I thought to myself, ‘create that Echo realm, the place where our reflections live.’

Easier thought than done! I had no idea where to start, and Dorian kept eating my pens.
But at the end of the day, I had come up with the main characters of the story (can’t say who they are, or you’ll figure out the name of the villain)—and I also invented a fictional dog.

That dog, later to be named Poudini, gave birth to another idea. Every child at the Orphanage of Castaway Children will have a pet, I decided. Dogs, cats, birds, snakes, frogs… a whole menagerie of animals was born in an instant.

Dorian asked to be a shade braver than he is in life. I obliged. His alter-ego, Poudini, saves the day more than once.

I would later spend many months inventing the world of the Echoes, followed by years of writing and more periods of intense planning mixed in. Now, the Echo realm is as real to me as my own life, but far more magical and inviting.

If “The Sound and the Echoes” charms the imagination of readers, I will one day write a sequel so my little white dachshund, Sophie, can fulfill her dream of becoming a Fate Sealer’s pet.