JP: I have a stories that I am working on that are geared toward adults. I wanted to get this one out there because it was the first one that I felt completely satisfied with so far.

TPR: Have you ever considered any other career besides author?

JP: When I was young, I wanted to be a film director and have several stories that I either made as class projects or never got to start or finish. I have decided to turn those stories into books.

TPR: What was your reason for writing this particular book?

JP: Originally, I wrote the story as a radio serial class project when I was in college 15 years ago. I wanted to have a clean and fun story unlike my other classmates. The name of the story was Let There Be Rain at that time. Most of the characters had different names, but Pastor Pig and Trevor Turtle remained the same. The way a classic radio serial program was formatted is that every time before and after a character is introduced the sound or name of the animal had to be made or spoken. For example, the voice actor would make a pig sound three times before and after Pastor Pig’s dialogue started and ended. This was fun and I really got to see more personality to each character in the readings and recordings. When I was writing the story for the class project, I reflected on where I was in my life. This was the first time that I was away from home at college on my own adventure looking for my life’s future rain. I was also dealing with personal family matters that I had never experienced before such as my parents divorcing and the deaths of one of my cousins and grandmother. On top of that, I had gotten really sick and the process took about two months to recover. A lot of adversity had entered my life, and I felt like I was in a mental and physical drought. With those new circumstances and experiences in my life, I was trying to stay optimistic and molded these components into my class project story theme. The characters that you see in the story had similar personalities of some my current and past friends. Overall, the adventure or journey within the story portrayed my feelings of hope, courage, self-discovery, and religion. After the project, I just kept the recording in storage for 13 years, and one day I came across the cassette tape. I did not have a cassette player anymore, so I had to go on the internet and find a cassette player to listen to the tape. Fortunately, I found one at a good price and listened to the story again since I had lost the script years ago. I transcribed the recording and rewrote the story into a children’s story. The only things that I needed to do was change some of the character names to flow better, book title, and add a few more characters and scenes. This was in the Fall of 2017 and by May 2018 I decided that I would like to actually publish the book. I found a publisher that helped me with the illustrations and after some months of proof reviews I had a finished product. November 7, 2018, Saving Forest Farm was a real thing and ready to be shared with the world.

TPR: What have you learned from writing SFF?

JP: Through this experience, I have learned to never give on my dreams and that the adventure never really ends.