Joan Perry Dufault

When I was growing up I spent many hours writing silly poems, children's stories and dreams of what I was going to do in life. However, I ended up spending a great number of years raising seven children, then trying to be a good grandmother to 17 children and I now am looking forward to keeping in touch with eight great-grandchildren (so far).

Around 2002 I began writing short stories to sell in magazines. Mostly about horses, my favorite pastime as a teenager. The story that sold the best was about Square Dancing on Horseback. Several magazines, mostly in Canada and the north west states, showcased it.

I won first prize in a library contest when I entered "Remembering my Tree". The subject of this short story was the tree we had in our back yard while we raised the children. It grew to 80' tall and became wide enough for six or seven people to hide behind. My husband had built all kinds of play buildings in our yard so it turned out to be an interesting story.

In 2007 I finished writing 'A Celebration of Life'. It was really an incomplete group of Autobiographical Sketches of my husband's and my families going back 135 years. I added many photographs of our family as they changed over the years including captions. This book was only made for the family as I put the whole thing together myself, at home then had a printer bind it for me... I had no plans about publishing it and still don't.

I began 'Educating a Widow' soon after I completed my Autobiographical Sketches. This story is about a widow trying to discover what to do with herself now that she was alone. My life story instigated the idea because I gave up college in my junior year to get married. However, my husband is alive and well so after that beginning, the story took off on its own path.

I have a few ideas for children's books over the next few years but right now I am busy enjoying those great-grandchildren.