Terri Kovalcik hopes to pull more youth into sharing her love of hunting and fishing.
Kovalcik recently finished writing her newest book, A Tracking We Will Go, the seventh instalment in her Junior Hunters at Large series. The series focuses on two young children, Charlie and Kaylee, who are part of a young sportsman’s group, where they learn wilderness survival, how-to and target practice with their fellow group members.
They take frequent hunting trips with their parents in the spring, summer, and fall. The books are a combination of “action-adventure, fiction, family adventures, survival techniques, and mental illness awareness,” Kovalcik said.
“They love hunting with mom and dad while on an exciting journey, creating memories that last forever.”
In her latest story, A Tracking We Will Go, Charlie goes cougar hunting with his mom while Kaylee hunts black bear with her dad.
Kovalcik found the inspiration to write book seven from her boss’s 10-year-old son, who has read and loved the Junior Hunters at Large series. Although the series is intended for children in Grades 4-5, she said even adults have enjoyed them. She said she shared her recent book with her friends on Facebook and “they couldn’t put it down, and they wanted to actually be that young again to be able to take part in the group.”
She said her goal when writing is to make it so her readers can see the story in their heads. Her inspiration to write came from Ray Bradbury’s Zen in the Art of Writing.
“What he used to do was he would write a word like chair, table, sink, and then write a story about that, and I knew I was going to write about hunting and fishing, so I just started listing the animals and then paired them up. So in the first (book), they go black bear hunting and cougar hunting. So then black bear hunting is with Charlie, and Kaylee goes cougar hunting with mom, so I interchanged them so that they go hunting with the opposite parents,” Kovalcik said.
And while many of her books are about hunting, one of Kovalcik’s other books focusing on the children, Lake Trout Fishing with Kaylee, is about a fishing contest of who can catch the biggest lake trout.
Kovalcik said her books are a combination of both her personal experiences and the research she has done. Hunting and fishing have been prominent parts of Kovalcik’s life since she was 19-years-old, and writing has been a key part of her life for a long time. The books allow her to combine her two passions.
“I take some of my personal experiences and then I add the fictional flair to it. And then I watch hunting and fishing videos and take pictures of the river and landscaping, and I write descriptions and then I add that into the book to make it real. I put a lot of effort into making sure that I have an authentic book that is entertaining and where you actually learn at the same time.”
Kovalcik plans to write a series of 20 books. Each book consists of four chapters and are about 50 pages each. The seven books currently available can be found on Amazon.com for US$7.99 or on Amazon.ca for CA$10.21.
The author said she feels great about her newest book.
“This time I’m crossing my fingers that my marketing strategy will do something this time, and people actually catch on, getting their kids to read about going hunting and fishing,” she said.
“Kids are fun, they’re entertainable… they’ll pick up any book and read it, give it an opportunity.”
lauren.keller@100milefreepress.net
Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter