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Breathing
life into a dragon tale
The Providence Journal, Tuesday, December 2, 2003 , BY
RICHARD C. DUJARDIN
Local
mom Ullie Emigh has a publishing deal for a book she hopes
will be the first in a series about a young girl and her adventures
in lands near and far.
EAST PROVIDENCE
-- If Ullie Emigh's dream of becoming known as a successful
children's author comes to fruition, some of the credit, she
says, will have to go to Eric, her 12-year-old son.
The German-born
Riverside resident recently got the news that the manuscript
she wrote two summers ago about archaeologists, dinosaur fossils,
giants and dragons had landed a publisher.
The work
could have easily turned out to be a boring story, she says,
had it not been for the advice she got early on from Eric,
now a sixth grader at the Riverside Middle School.
Learning
that his mother's book was going to deal with many of the
things they picked up about dinosaur fossils in their trips
to the American Museum of Natural History in New York, Eric
told her to keep it interesting.
"Don't
write a story about science," he advised. "It has
to be an adventure."
And looking
back, his mom says, "I have to say he was right."
Ullie
Emigh is a native of Stuttgart, Germany, who came to the United
States in 1980 after receiving degrees in English and Latin
from the University of Heidelberg. It was at Brown University,
while working on her master's degree in English, that she
met her husband, John, who is still at Brown as a professor
of theater, speech and dance.
A few
years ago, while working as a German-English translator for
various agencies, she become fascinated by the study of dinosaurs,
thanks to her son's insatiable interest in that subject.
"Eric
was absolutely encyclopedic when it came to dinosaurs,"
she recounted yesterday.
Not only
did the family take many pilgrimages to check out the fossils
at the natural-history museum, but mother and son read "tons"
of books about dinosaurs, as well.
Emigh
-- whose last name is pronounced Amy -- says she heeded her
son's advice and tried to write a tale that would appeal to
many young readers.
It's called
Nika Watters and the Case of the Misplaced Fossil, and centers
on the adventures of Nika, a 9-year-old girl from Providence
who goes with her mom, an archaeologist, to a dig in southern
Germany (not far, it happens, from where the author used to
live).
"The
dig is of a Roman villa from the first century, where the
archaeologists discover two dinosaur-age fossils."
That discovery
offers an opportunity for the author to acquaint her young
readers about one theory as to how some of the old Roman and
Chinese myths about dragons and giants originated. The Romans
and Chinese crafted their dragon tales in response to the
fossils they found.
"I
wouldn't call myself a scientist, but I am interested in where
science and human imagination overlap," she says. "This
is one of them. The Romans were constructing a story based
on what they saw."
But there's
more to this East Providence author's tale than the origin
of certain ancient myths. In this book, Nika becomes friendly
with the son of the inn owner where her family has been staying.
The two of them discover a secret that has been in the landlord's
family for years.
Emigh
says she hopes the story will be the first in a series of
Nika adventure books that will take young readers to places
far and near. Though she has an idea for Nika's next adventure,
in Bali, she wouldn't rule out having Nika go to more local
haunts as well, in Providence and Newport.
And why
the name Nika Watters?
"Nika
would have been our son's name if he were born a girl,"
she says. "And Watters Elementary was his first school."
Emigh's
contract with Publish America, the Maryland-based publishing
firm that's paying her for the book, says publication will
take place within the year. She says the firm has a reputation
among writers as being open to the works of previously unpublished
authors.
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