Portland author Dawn Prochovnic had kindergarteners at Dry Hollow Elementary School signing and rhyming Friday as she read from her picture book series Story Time with Signs and Rhymes.
Dry Hollow was one of four elementary schools Prochovnic visited in The Dalles as she also went to Colonel Wright, Chenowith and St. Mary’s Academy to show students the importance of reading and writing.
“The kids I was working with are younger but there’s a subtle message that I always try to leave with a sense that you need to write and writing is something that you are capable of doing,” Prochovnic said.
“I want to encourage writers,” she said. “The biggest thing I hope a student gets is that connection that writing is important, reading is fun, reading is important and that authors are real live people. They’re ordinary people that decided to choose writing as their work and even if it’s not your work, you can be an author if you choose to write down your ideas.”
Prochovnic told the Dry Hollow students that all you need to be an author is something comfortable to wear, a pen and paper or computer, and an idea.
Prochovnic also stressed the importance of reading.
“If you read a lot of books, your brain learns how to write things down,” she said.
Born in Klamath Falls and raised in Portland, Prochovnic’s journey to becoming an author began in the fifth grade when she won a reading contest. In middle school, she then wrote a poetry book for a mother’s day gift. Prochovnic continued to write through high school, earning college scholarships based on essays. However, at Portland State, she stopped writing creatively to focus on getting a business degree.
“I forgot about it [creative writing], quite honestly,” Prochovnic said. “I started writing term papers and research papers.”
When Prochovnic’s first daughter was born, she went to a sign language for babies class, which Prochovnic enjoyed so much that she decided to start a consulting business called SmallTalk Learning to teach other people how to sign with their babies.
“What I discovered was the way I was teaching them how to sign was by stories and I started writing those stories down and remembered that I had a creative writer in me,” Prochovnic said.
Wanting to get her stories published and find an illustrator, Prochovnic went to a writing conference in 2004. Singing and signing from her manuscript of “See the Colors” during a workshop, Prochovnic found a friend in Arthur Levine—publisher of Harry Potter books.
“He had a young son at the time and he thought it was a nice idea and he encouraged me,” Prochovnic. “He said it was a great idea. It’s not ready yet, but keep working.”
Prochovnic then submitted her work to Levine for two and half years. He would write back notes and continue to encourage her before getting to the point where Levine said Prochovnic’s manuscript was ready but it wasn’t for him.
“It was gut-wrenching,” Prochovnic said. “It was probably one of the hardest rejections that I’ve received. But I knew I had a story that was publishable.”
The other tough rejection came from Greenwillow Books. Prochovnic still has the manuscript of “Nest Where I like to Rest” with a sticky note from the head publisher.
“Those things encouraged me to keep submitting and I knew I was close,” Prochovnic said. “I just had to find the right publisher.”
In 2008, Prochovnic signed with Abdo Publishing Group, which wanted to release not one but eight of her books. Luckily, Prochovnic has seven completed manuscripts and another one she could convert into the Story Time with Rhymes and Signs series.
The first eight were released in 2009 and eight more in 2012.
“Nest Where I like to Rest” was named an Oregon Book Award Finalist in 2011.
While Prochovnic still writes, she’s taken a break from submitting her work to promote library advocacy, particularly in Beaverton, which went from being the star of the state to not having a single certified librarian in any of its schools.
Prochovnic is partnering with 24 other Oregon authors in a special picture book to be released this fall called “Oregon Reads Aloud,” to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Start Making A Reader Today (SMART) — a volunteer program where adults read to kids that takes place in each of The Dalles elementary schools.
Prochovnic has been visiting schools even before her books were published.
“One of my greatest hopes in connecting with young readers is that they see the power of words,” Prochovnic said. “They see that they are capable of harnessing that power and that they have something important to say and that when you take the time to write down the important things that you have to say that your words are even stronger than if you just speak them.”
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