By JULIE CARLE
BG Independent News
Bettie Boswell grew up reading voraciously and making up stories as she sat in the back seat of her family’s car.
For most of her adult life as a school music teacher and church music director, the long-time Bowling Green resident has continued telling stories by writing skits, plays and musicals for elementary students, communities and parishioners. Only recently has she ventured into the world of publishing novels.
She’s the proud author of two adult Christian romance books and two children’s books. Another children’s book is expected to be published in spring 2023, and an adult book that will complete a trilogy is about 10,000 words shy of being ready for the editing process.
Boswell read from her children’s books – “Skateboarding” and “Sidetracked” – and talked about her books and the writing process Sunday afternoon at Novel Blends in downtown Bowling Green.
The two children’s books were “work for hire” projects that she wrote after making connections at workshops. “Sidetracked,” published in December 2019, was her first published book.
Boswell was one of six writers picked at a conference to submit ideas for children’s books. “The instructions were vague. The idea was to be about historic technology and the use of science that would relate to a fifth-grade curriculum,” Boswell said. She thought about the Underground Railroad research she had done for one of the Sylvania musicals she had written.
She recalled learning about the first steam engine that was used on the Erie and Kalamazoo Railroad in 1837.
“How about an early train?” she asked the publishers. “They said, ‘That sounds interesting.’” And the premise for the short-chaptered “Sidetracked” was born.
The book is about the first train that was used on the Erie and Kalamazoo Railroad for interstate mail delivery between Toledo, Ohio, and Adrian, Michigan, starting in 1837. The main characters are two boys who worked on the train, which had a habit of falling over because it was so top-heavy. The boys used the science of pulleys to get the train back on the tracks in the right direction.
“Skateboarding,” published in August 2022, is a book she had one month to write. In fact, she found the request in her spam email the final month before she retired. Boswell rushed to the library to check out every skateboard book she could find and talked to skateboarders at the BG City Park’s skateboard park who told her that Tony Hawk was no longer the current skateboard idol.
The publisher’s request was very specific. The book needed to be written at the second-grade level but appeal to fifth graders. The chapters had to include the sport’s history, safety and big skateboard events.
When the book went to the editors 30 days later, they opted to switch the skateboard idol mentioned by the local skateboarders to the iconic Hawk.
“They did the plotting and I just filled in the details,” she said with a smile.
One of the tips Boswell offers to budding writers: “Never throw out your research.”
Her original Underground Railroad research for the historical musical in Sylvania was key, not only in the train story chapter book, but also in the “books from my heart,” including her first novel, “On Cue,” and its prequel, “Free to Love,” both published by Mount Zion Ridge Publishing.
In “On Cue,” the Christian romance novel published in November 2020, Boswell introduced the main character, Ginny. The character was named for Boswell’s mother, but the story aligned with the author’s experience of creating the Sylvania musical to save the local museum.
[RELATED: Musical sets the stage for Bettie Boswell’s first Christian romance novel]
“Free to Love,” published in July 2022, is a split-time story about Ginny before the musical experience and a love story she discovered through journals and poetry about a Black couple who traveled on the Underground Railroad to freedom.
She is wrapping up a third book in the Ginny trilogy that has a working title of “Hoping for Treasure.”
Another book from her heart is a children’s book called “Dottie’s Dream Horse.” The short-chapter book is based on her father’s childhood memories of growing up on a farm. Dottie is a little girl with a fear of heights, and the dream horse is a mule. Boswell is writing and illustrating the book, which is expected to be published in spring 2023 by Elk Lane Publishers.
She has at least 20 to 30 more children’s manuscripts in her head that she plans to write as long as she is able.
All of her books are based in a strong faith upbringing, said Boswell, who not only grew up in a strong, faith-based home, but who is married to David Boswell, longtime pastor of the Village View Church of Christ.
Faith plays a big part in her writing especially in the books that are from her heart and have been published by Christian publishers.
“Faith shows up in the way the characters handle their struggles in a moral way. The books aren’t preachy. Church and faith are just part of the characters’ lives,” she said. “I think that is where my future lies in writing. That’s who I am,” she said.
Boswell’s books are available from the publishers, online at sellers such as Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Gathering Volumes, or by contacting her at bettie.boswell.author@gmail.com.
