By Nina Zhuang
Tracy McGlynn’s exuberant, positive energy is so contagious that I couldn’t stop smiling and laughing throughout the interview.
It’s no surprise that her energy is infused into Maggie the Muskie: The Lost Glasses, her jolly children’s picture book debut. Inspired by a trip with her family up north to the lake, her self-published book tells a story about a big, friendly fish who’s always at your beck and call. More accurately, beck and song.
“Maggie the Muskie lives in the lake.
With an Otter and a turtle and Froggie and Snake.
Whenever things go wrong
And you don’t know who to call you just Maggie, Maggie…”
McGlinn had enlisted the help of her neighbour, Blair Gibson, in creating a cute and catchy tune to accompany the story. It’s so catchy that even her kids and their friends sang it out of the blue. “It was such a beautiful moment,” she remembered happily.
Contrary to my expectations, the lighthearted book was birthed in a time of despair. McGlynn had suffered from a brain hemorrhage that put her out of work in 2014. The culmination of stress from her injury and work as a paramedic resulted in heavy depression and PTSD. Things were brutal, she recalls, but she viewed it as a necessary catalyst for all the incredible things that have happened since then.
For instance, she began to write.
The writer talked to me about finding the silver lining of bad situations, as trying as it was. For her, she felt the urge to write—skits, screenplays, scripts—it became her coping mechanism. “Writing was my therapy full-on,” she explained. “When I was off work with the injury and PTSD, it felt like I was never going to laugh again.”
She found joy in putting pen to paper, even when things seemed hopeless. In fact, she drew inspiration from the somberness. Funeral homes, death, and the Grim Reaper all made their appearances in her works, but with comedy intertwined. Finding the humour in the hopelessness was essential for her.
“Roses grow out of manure, you know. There’s always something beautiful in sh*t, and I think you have to look for the funny! I had to learn to cry and laugh at the same time. If you’re depressed one day, you can still find the funny and laugh the next day. You learn to balance both after experiencing trauma.”
McGlynn has written a movie and two TV shows—one of which almost made it to production. Even though it could’ve taken off, she confessed, “I don’t like script-writing. I really wanted to like it, but my brain goes too fast to keep up with the dialogue between characters!”
Out of all her output in the last eight years, it was Maggie the Muskie and children’s books she enjoyed writing the most. “I liked writing skits for my personal healing, but I loved writing the kids’ book because I got a lot of joy from it. I knew I loved it when I could read the same paragraph 100 times without hating it.”
Writing, alongside a supportive community of family and friends, was integral to the author’s physical and mental convalescence. Being away from work was hard for her, as she felt left behind when hearing that her former colleagues had advanced the ranks. Presently, McGlynn dismisses that mentality. Rest and recovery were crucial. It’s how she found the motivation to write more and eventually heal.
“We’re all so hard on ourselves. You just have to take a step back and think, ‘look at what you’ve done. Look at what you’ve accomplished.’ You owe it to yourself to be true to yourself, respect and honour yourself.”
The author has also revealed that another children’s book is in the works. Until that is completed, she is content with sharing Maggie the Muskie with the world. The Parry Sound Public Library and McGlynn herself are looking forward to a special read-aloud of the picture book in August.
All in all, writing is her happy place. “I think I like the escapism of it,” she laughed. “It helped me see that I didn’t have to be depressed all the time. It is really good therapy.”
Her best advice for aspiring writers, creatives, and anyone with a great idea: “If you have dreams, or anything that’s nagging you…you have to do it! You have to own it!”
Check out Maggie the Muskie: The Lost Glasses on FriesenPress, Amazon.ca, Barnes & Noble, and more.
