Book Birthday Blog with Michael Boucher

 

 

Welcome to SCBWI-MI's Book Birthday Blog!

Where we celebrate new books from Michigan's authors, illustrators and translators.

 

Congratulations to Michael Boucher on the release of The Snipe Hunters' Deadly Catch at Muskrat Creek

 

How did you come up with the idea for your book?

Early in my career I counseled a student while working at Catholic Family Service.  The student, already coping with abuse and neglect, had an understandable but felonious response to a traumatic killing in his family. Some months after I had returned to graduate school, the director of the agency asked me to return to the office for an in-person meeting. I drove the 138 miles without an explanation, but knowing that the director of the agency was one prince of a man and a dedicated professional.  The package I unwrapped was a piece of artwork from my student.  It was his response to the trauma. During the hospital incarceration that followed the trial, he had engaged in art therapy.  When the paper came off that package, there was not a dry eye in that office.  I had that painting for decades.  I never forgot him and resolved to tell his story. 

What is something you hope your readers will take away from your book?

Messages for young adults include: the queen of all virtues is COURAGE; principled men can make mistakes by trying too hard; there’s evil in this world and it must be confronted; in life there’s a need for forgiveness and the possibility of self-redemption; friendship, advice from trusted mentors, and prayer are tools for navigating tricky waters as well as tricky paths in life.

What inspires you to write?

In addition to answer one, I enjoy and find myself challenged by the creative writing courses I have completed as well as the training I'm currently completing with John Fox of BOOKFOX. Putting a pen to a blank page is akin to putting a canoe in an unknown river. Though one has a pen/paddle, one knows not what may be encountered, nor one's responses by the end of the journey.

What was the most difficult part of writing this book?

When I completed graduate training in how to teach college, I was advised: the ratio is ten-one: ten hours of preparation for a one-hour lecture (that was after you’d completed your degree in the field). The reading, research, and confirming source material for preparing a novel has been that and more.  So, the challenge is “time on task”. Fortunately, I’m retired and can largely set my schedule.  Note also my novel was 2.5 years in development once the publisher agreed to look at it. This included integrating artwork by a totally gifted illustrator who grew up on the Au Sable River and became an art professor! (An artist I, with guidance from above, found, not the publisher!)

What's next for you?

I finished chapter twenty of the sequel prior to Christmas.  The publisher made no promises but indicated they were intrigued enough to…” take another look.” 

 

A little bit about the book . . .

Danger ahead. Evil on the river . . .

15-year-old Kenny, just released from three years in a state hospital, slips away from his new school in the pre-dawn hours with Joe, a fellow student known for his skills in the wilderness of the Au Sable River Forest.

Braving brutal Michigan weather and a hijacked canoe, these Bosco Academy students must use both prayer and a hatchet to triumph over armed bandits.

A little bit about the author . . .

A tough but beloved nun assigned a Michigan history lesson.  Fr. Jacques Marquette was paddling a canoe, founding Sault Sainte Marie, discovering the Mississippi, and dodging headhunters.  I heard the “Call of the Wild.” 
 
I’ve paddled in Minnesota’s Boundary Waters, Ontario’s Quetico Wilderness, on four Great Lakes, completed Mountaineering Survival Training-Northwest Outward Bound School, and, with my daughter, earned the Presidential Fitness - Canoe Award, paddling 250 miles. I’m smitten by the majesty of God’s creation and the peace and serenity of Thoreau’s Walden Pond.
 
After college and graduate school, I was a counselor for Catholic Family Service, college instructor (sociology/psychology), school social worker, and an advisor/teaching assistant for Michigan State University.
 
I backpacked through ten European countries, visited Lourdes with my wife Catherine and worked Habitat for Humanity projects twice in Armenia.  In autumn, my two daughters and I enjoy watching my three grandchildren play soccer and football. 

https://www.storytel.org/snipehunters#.Y7nd1-LMLvU