Beat's Letters to Lucky Garners Recognition

Maureen Beat’s Letters to Lucky, featured on this blog earlier this year, is piling up accolades and recognition. The children’s book chronicles the relationship between Beat’s beagle, Lucky, and neighborhood children. Beat had been inspired to write the book after Lucky passed away to acknowledge the impact she had on Beat’s family and the neighborhood children.
Beat was recently featured in the Marian High School magazine (pages 38-39) as well as on the Omaha Dispatch website. The articles document the process that Beat went in writing and illustrating the book as well as marketing it after it was published.
​
Beat so enjoyed the process that she is now hard at work on a second book, Go Gizmo Go.
“The Gizmo book is just being written in a journal with bits and pieces as the rhyming 'couplets' come to my mind,” Beat said. “I have not yet put them together to tell his story in chronological order. I know I want to begin with when he was just a baby pup. The litter was all boys, and all black, except he was the only one with white eyebrows, beard and 'boots'”
 
This time around, Beat is shopping for an agent and hopes to get both Lucky and Gizmo picked up by a major publisher.
 
“The query process is quite arduous because agents want specific genres,” Beat said. “I have also learned to check that they are accredited Association of Author's Representatives (AAR), a publishing industry trade group. Until that point, I will continue to self-publish. I have learned so much about the publishing industry.”
 
Beat encourages others to take a crack at writing and illustrating as well.
​
I would tell other aspiring children's book authors or illustrators to keep honing their skill because it takes time. The writers should not rush,” she said. “They should run it by friends and family to see if it flows. I would advise illustrators to have a distinct style, so it is recognizable. Good illustrators are paired with good writers. It is rare to find a writer who illustrates their own book.”

---