Greta Baker Ward - Author, Children's Books

I have been writing since elementary school. It started with my younger sister. We would be stuck in the back seat of the car on a long trip, so we would begin to recite nursery rhymes and then re-write them to be funny. Daddy got us going by saying, “Mary had a little lamb, his fleece was white as snow, and everywhere that Mary went, she took a bus.”

We composed poems about things we saw along the way. We used to love to watch Mt. Airy “sink” into the trees on the way back into Warsaw, so we wrote a poem about Mt. Airy from the point of view of a tree that sheltered the great house.

The sixties yielded some rather weird poetry, but that was a rather weird decade!

When I moved back into the Northern Neck as an adult a local publication was encouraging folks to write about recycling. I decided to write a children’s book on recycling. After writing it I was overwhelmed at the thought of getting it published, so it sat in a file for 18 years.

Pinkie the Cat gets a Baby Sister

Reader Comments

Wonderful! Heart warming!
Libby Greenwood, Owner/Director
Mt. Landing Children's Center

...a delightful story...I think children will enjoy it and benefit from its message.
Sharon Band, MD, FAAP

A couple of years later, my husband and I got a cat that we grew to love very much. Later, we were given a kitten and Pinkie, the big cat, was not happy. That situation inspired me to write Pinkie the Cat Gets a Baby Sister. That, too, sat in a file for years.

A couple of years ago I attended a workshop on writing taught by published author and editor, Barbara Shine. It was fun and inspiring. Barbara encouraged me to continue writing and pursue publishing for my books.

I came up with the idea to hold a contest at the local elementary school and have the children draw the two main cat characters for my Pinkie the Cat book. When the winners were chosen, I promised them that the book would be published and donated to their school library for all to see. I also promised them signed copies. Then I had to get it published!

I realized that if I started sending it off to publishers until I found one that was interested, those kids might be in High School by the time the book was printed. So began my interest in being my own publisher. I searched the internet and made numerous phone calls. After many quotes, I settled on Lottsburg Printing, just down the road from me.

I hired an artist who took the children’s drawings and made them come alive for the book. Lottsburg Printing did a beautiful job of printing the book and in the fall of 2007 I presented the books to the winners and donated a copy to Northumberland Elementary School.

At the Virginia Festival of the Book in the Charlottesville in 2008 I attended a lecture on self-publishing. The speaker said that most self-published authors only sell 50 to 100 copies of their book. At that time I had sold 530 copies of Pinkie the Cat Gets a Baby Sister within the first six months. I felt proud and confident!

As of this writing, July 2008, I have three more children’s books in print and I plan to have at least two more by August. I love writing and I really enjoy doing the layout for each new book.

I am currently working on three books for the adult audience; You Might as Well Laugh – a collection of humorous essays, The Care and Feeding of Your Attitude – your attitude is something you choose, and a memoir, the title of which I will not reveal until it is ready to be published – it has to do with a controversial situation I was involved in years ago.

I live in “downtown” Walmsley, VA with my husband and six cats. I work part-time during the week and on weekends I become Buzzie the Clown.

I find that life in general is filled with things to write about, so I will never run out of material!