H L Ott
When I was four, I was diagnosed with a rare eye condition called Optic Nerve Hypoplasia. It left me legally blind in both eyes, and it is not correctable by glasses or surgery. Due to my low vision, I had to use pens and several vision devices. Children at a young age don’t understand this, and I had few friends. However, when I was eight years old, I discovered my purpose in life. I was asked by my teacher to write a poem, something that had meaning to me, then share it with the class. The poem was short, called “Pencils”. Odd, but it had a lot of meaning for me. I used this poem to help the children in my class understand why I couldn’t use pencils. To my amazement, it worked! They understood me better than ever before, and I was hooked on writing from then on. As I grew older, I used poetry to express my feelings about the classes I loved and my family pet Lilly, a beagle mix. When I was old enough to understand people picking on me due to vision or the loss of many loved ones, writing had my back as well.
When Sneezy the Squirrel is released, the first thing you may notice is that the print will be larger. This was my choice. As a younger child it was hard to find books that I didn’t need a magnifier for. Now that I am writing my own, especially when it comes to children’s books, the print size will be automatically larger. This is because I believe every child should be able to read and learn from the same book. I also believe that a child’s parents shouldn’t have to pay more for a book their child can see. The next step in my process is to get Sneezy the Squirrel out there so parents with and without children with special needs knows it is available. What I earn from this book will go towards future projects! I want to be an author; it is the first love and only constant I have ever wanted in life.
My favorite part of writing is when I start a new story, or I expand on a series with another book; it is so exciting! I don’t know where I am going, but I trust my imagination will lead me in the right direction. It has yet to let me down, and I can’t wait for my readers to rise and fall, laugh and cry, along with every new adventure I take them on, at any age. I personally thank you for reading about me, and I hope you are as excited as I am to read about Sneezy and all my other characters to come. Thank you.
