Rev. Tyrel Bramwell

My newest book will be released on December 3. The Bird Battle of Artisan Alley (pre-order here) is the sequel to The World of the Wazzlewoods. Both are part of the A Fern & Dale Fairy Tale series.

I’m having a blast with these books. The other day I told my wife that I could write wazzlewood stories all day, every day. It’s a lot of fun to write wholesome adventures for kids and their families. It’s also a lot of fun to be able to include special meaning here and there throughout the books.

Nothing overbearing. The story is of prime importance. But if I can play with a theme or put a little dialogue in that makes me think of my childhood, it’s fun to do so.

I had the chance to do that with the cover of The Bird Battle of Artisan Alley. In February of this year, my family’s life was turned upside down when my son was diagnosed with cancer. I was working on the first draft of this second book when out of the blue, we found ourselves in the midst of a real, life-threatening battle. 

There’s no need to get into the details. Instead, I want to draw your attention to the color on the cover. The titling and series ribbon on The World of the Wazzlewoods is orange. This time around we went with yellow. We toyed with a few other colors before landing on yellow for The Bird Battle of Artisan Alley. Do you know what the yellow is for me?

It’s a reminder that during the writing of The Bird Battle of Artisan Alley my son fought a battle against cancer… and won! Yellow is the color of the ribbon for childhood cancer awareness. (Technically it’s gold, but yellow for gold, they do it all the time.)

See what I mean? It’s fun to drop little bits of special into, or in this case, onto my books. I was inspired to write this book when a local Ferndale family lost their cat. I wanted to give the little kids in that family a hopeful ending to their sad and unexpected event. The yellow titling and series ribbon on book two of the A Fern & Dale Series will forever remind me that my family also received a hopeful ending to a sad and unexpected event. My son’s cancer.