How the Doggerel went Digital
By
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December 15, 2020
My dive into the technology of digital storytelling and augmented reality began with the kind of doggerel I usually write on friends’ birthdays or other notable occasions, a few lines scribbled in rhyme for a Facebook post or inspired by an overdose of news (see my last Post Alley story).
This time it was the report of an owl that hitched a ride on a 75 foot spruce tree destined for Rockefeller Center that tickled my fancy and generated a rhyme for the four year old son of a friend. His mom, Susan Heins, the founder of Immersive Kid, is also a digital publisher, who miraculously turned my poem about Rocky the owl into a children’s storybook in less than two weeks, a revelation to someone whose first book, over four decades ago, took over a year from final edit before it made it into print.
The process is still a mystery to me; after waiting through the long months between finishing a project and seeing it in bookstores, two weeks seems like magic. Of course, the only bookstores it’s in are Google Play and the Apple store, but maybe Rocky will turn up in actual print, between two covers, before next Christmas, when hopefully book stores will be open for browsing again.
