Author Dvora Swickle
Women Writers Over 50
Women Writers Over 50
Fifty Odd is featuring women writers over 50 each week for 50 weeks. Each guest answers questions about her writing subjects, her writing inspiration, her purpose for writing, and her current books and upcoming writing projects.
Children’s author, Dvora Swickle, is my featured guest this week. Dvora writes encouraging stories intended to uplift children who may feel a little bit different due to their own learning styles. She inspires each child to find their own special ability and gift and to embrace the special person we are all meant to be.
Women Writers Over 50…Dvora’s Biography
Dvora Swickle lives in the quaint fishing village of Gig Harbor, Washington. There the grass is green, the trees are tall, and the animals roam freely. Dvora believes that all children’s should live bully free and learn confidence in there own special ways. My stories are like a box of cracker jacks, a lovely reading experience with a message inside just for them to grow on. In this day we are all going in so many directions it’s hard to stop and give advice, sometimes advice is not wanted. Kids like to think they know it all but we know that is impossible, for experience is the gift of learning. Come and join Dvora as she tells her many tales. Her words will follow you all through your life!
Dvora Swickle (AKA D.A. Johnson) has been entertaining and writing for children (and her two kids) for over 20 years. Dvora drove school bus for 10 years enjoys reading in school classrooms. She has a captivating voice. Dvora now works with special needs children and is devoted to helping students 18 to 21 transition from high school into the work community and living independently.
Stories can help students understand problems without feeling it is directed towards them personally. Dvora enjoys reading and putting fun voices to her characters, inviting children to take part. Every time she reads “sweet green grass” kids are encouraged to raise there hands. Dvora loves seeing all the fingers in the air, makes her feel so appreciated and loved.
She has written over 40 stories and is the author of two poetry collections. The first poetry collection “Dress Up” is available in paperback. The second collection “Kittywampus” is available in eBook format. Dvora encourages young children to develop a life-long love for language and reading. She believes that poetry can play a big role in motivating children to read. “Poetry helps young readers understand language, words and feelings through rhythm and rhyme.
Children feel comfortable with poems because it’s like playtime with words.”
Dvora’s motto is T.T.R.A.B, “Time To Read Another Book”.
Vive la difference, Dvora! Thank you for your gentle stories.
When did you decide you wanted to be a writer?
A long time ago, its seems I fell in love with movies. They were sort of babysitters for us kids. We would go at 9:00 a.m. and get picked up at 3:00 p.m. I was so amazed at the ideas all the producers and writers created. Being a very imaginative child I would come up with my own ideas for stories and movies.
When I told people I wanted to be a writer I learned it meant you had to be good in school: To be able to memorize great passages of people of the past to have a big vocabulary that amazed everyone around you.
I had none of these qualities. Having learning disabilities, I tended to see things differently. I read with little comprehension so instead I would just make it up as I went.
So I didn’t fall in the right format, wasn’t writer material, I guess. I believed only students with A’s that amazed the teachers were the ones lucky enough to be noticed and helped. No matter how I tried, I was considered,” she just doesn’t apply herself.”
My mother did not read nursery rhymes or stories to us as youngsters, so I really didn’t get into books, but music was another subject. I couldn’t memorize the lyrics but that didn’t matter because I never quite heard the words right anyway. So I became funny and a comedian… that worked for me. Deep down inside though, I was hurt, baffled. I felt as if I had been gypped somewhere down the line.
What or who inspired you to write?
I wrote good lyrics for bands, my abstract talent seemed to give me an edge. But when I gave birth to my daughter, my Mother in-law played with my baby girl in a way I had never seen before. They laughed and giggled together as if she knew her all along. I was amazed at how she knew what to do. It brought tears to my eyes, because I felt out of place and lost. Well, as I watched my mother-in-law and with her gentle teaching, I grew stronger and less fearful of trying to entertain in a way I had never done before.
Soon I started reading books, not well at first but that did not matter. The smile from my daughter gave me the confidence to be me. I didn’t have to impress anyone, just exist.
Then it happened, I began reading with voices and acting with my expressions and found I was pretty good at it.
What do you hope to accomplish with your writing?
What I wish to accomplish is to give confidence to someone who feels out of place. To give confidence to someone who feels different… a small gentle boy or girl with a question they feel is too dumb.
I asked so many as a kid and heard this in response…”Think about it! That is dumb question. Common sense, it just common sense.”
Yes, most is easy, but when you are a bit different with a quality of seeing life in a different view, sometimes seeing what others see is hard. I find I think so out of the box,that my stories are that way. They step out of the box to talk about the simple, easy, should- of- figured- out- yourself kind of stuff. I write about how friendship works, how to say you’resorry and how to let someone who maybe can’t… think they can… in loving way. I want to encourage a child who feels left out because they have memorizing problems, a child who does not speak right.
I want children learning to say, “I did it, I am sorry.” Then really be forgiven. Give girls the little bit of confidence that beauty is skin deep and with age with your beauty really will show. Know that in time, hurt will pass but to keep the loving memories golden in your heart. Just because one is bigger and better than the smaller and thinner that they can become the King as well. That’s another story too.
What is your favorite part…(paragraph…page…line) from one of your books?
“He shook it again and it snowed even more, then off Ollie floated around in the globe, ending up where he began, back to dear Norman’s home. Diamonds floating and bobbing about, twinkling, sparkling in sweet Norma’s eyes.”
page 115 in the story, The Legend of Santa Owl.
What have you learned from writing?
That perfection is in the eyes of the beholder. As I may not pass an adult test, even to this day, I do and will pass in a child’s eye. For children still have the gift of creating, understanding of imperfections, seeing the feelings of stuffed animals and pictures, giving love when most have forgotten, and seeing everything that goes around them with two understanding theirs and the world around them.
I try not to put ideas in these brave young brains but to give them confidence and words to stand tall when they need them, to be expressive and speak their feelings proactively with confidence and clarity.
What are you working on now…or what is your next writing project?
I am working on a story of a boy in a wheel chair. It’s about how he comes to learn confidence, give back strength in words without anger…How to make small kids feel stronger, work toward goals he has set forth for himself with the help of a friend he meets in school… Taking bully girls, nick picky boys and then dreaming about his life as a real sherriff in the town of ‘Ever So Fyne Mudd.’ Its an amazing story and all I want to do in this story is to show confidence, entertain, teach without shoving rules down their throats, but giving morals with a gentle breeze in words.
I want to encourage children to find strength where they didn’t know they had it. To show that maybe God gave you that quirky little bits and pieces just for you and the plan is always there, just sometimes takes time to find it, snivel, snivel, snort!
Visit Dvora’s author page on Amazon. And while you’re there, buy some of her books to give the unique and special children you know!
