Michaele Stoughton, pictured, will be reading and signing copies of her book on Saturday afternoon, March 21, at 2 p.m. at the Coburn Free Library.
Michaele Stoughton’s first book, Pleasantwick, took two years to grow from “some characters in a forest” to a first draft. It would be five more years before her young adult novel became a paperback she could hold in her hands. Finally, though, the Town of Owego woman has produced a novel she’s proud to share with the world.
Pleasantwick tells the story of teenager Melinda Richards, whose father has just purchased a forgotten house deep in the California woods. But unbeknownst to the Richards family, that old house is also the portal to Pleasantwick, a mystical world guarded by the tantalizing young Luke Sotheby. Melinda’s everyday world and the world of Pleasantwick clash as Melinda and Luke’s relationship deepens – and the ending is something no reader will be able to predict.
“From the beginning I knew the book would have a supernatural component,” Michaele explains. She adds that she’s always been fascinated with the story of the Salem Witch Trials – an event to which she has a personal connection; her husband Scott is descended from William Stoughton, a colonial Massachusetts magistrate who unapologetically presided over that tragic episode in American history. “I always wondered what would have happened if some of the witches had gotten away,” Michaele notes. This thread would work its way into Pleasantwick.
But after the novel was completed, Michaele needed to get it into print. She’d read about self-publishing, but says “initially I didn’t think it was for me.” But then she began to hear so many success stories involving self-published authors that she decided to give it a try.
After making the decision to self-publish, though, Michaele was determined to do it right. “I got professional editors and a professional cover designer. I read up on the self-publishing process and even learned HTML so the different e-book formats would turn out perfectly.” Now that the book is available on Amazon in both paperback and e-book formats, she is focusing on marketing the book to the widest audience possible.
Her proudest moment in writing Pleasantwick? “When my daughters told me they liked it!”
Michaele will be reading and signing copies of her book on Saturday afternoon, March 21, at 2 p.m. at the Coburn Free Library, 275 Main St., Owego. She looks forward to meeting with readers, answering questions – and introducing everyone to Pleasantwick!
