“Poultry Passion – Stories From Highshire Farm”

The Story Behind The Story

We are so lucky to have Amber Jepsen visiting today. Amber wrote her first book when she was 10 years-old and it was published when she was 12.

Here she shares her inspiring road to publication.

AMBER’S STORY

I’ve always loved writing, ever since I can remember. As a very young child I can recall always writing little stories and books, some which you would call quite “imaginative”! It was at that age that I was determined to become an author, with my biggest dream to be published. It wasn’t until I was 10 and home bound for three months due to major spinal surgery that my dream started coming true.

All my stories seemed to have a focus on the animals around me, and there are a lot considering we live on a 60 acre farm. But it was when my aide from Primary School sent me a photo of her four newborn Silkie chicks, that inspiration hit me and I wrote the first short story “The Silkie Gang”.

At this stage it was never going to turn into a book, let alone be published. However, when you’re stuck at home for three months, you have a lot of free time. As my aide sent  more pictures of her various breeds of poultry, I wrote more short stories, a story for each different breed of bird. Even though I had written six short stories, I still hadn’t considered making it into an actual book. It was only when a teacher from school read them that she decided to help make my dream a reality.

And so the process began to get my book published. It took a good year of intense editing, going through each story over and over, communicating back and forth with a professional editor who agreed to get onboard. Once we had reached a somewhat mistake-free bunch of stories, and the title “Poultry Passion – Stories From Highshire Farm”, the rejections began.

We contacted countless publishers who turned us away, and many media outlets. Most media companies rejected us, but we managed to get the ABC’s 7:30 report to run a story on my journey with my book. At this stage, many amazing local people who had contacts to many others in the writing industry, had come together and helped through all stages including editing, illustrating and publishing. Without these people, the book never could of happened.

After many months of preparing, at the age of 12,  my book was published and the 7:30 report aired. My dream had come true. It was an incredible experience to publish my own book and has made me believe that any young person with a passion for writing can follow their dreams too.