'The Halloween Flight' with K.W. Morgan

Halloween is over, but you guys know I like anything spooky, pumpkin-y, anything year-round for me. And so now I would like to welcome K.W. Morgan to the show. Welcome to Lit Happens with Sid. Hi, thank you so much for having me. I love your show. I love it. So I'm so excited to be here. Thank you so much for reaching out. And it's so funny because you have a book out. And it is actually based on a real life event that happened to you, which we actually ran the story. But before we kind of get into that, tell us a little bit about who you are and what really made you want to become an author. Oh boy, my entire life I wanted to write. And I love books, children's books. When I was young, I just remember sitting in front of the fire with my mom and her reading to us as a child. So it was something I always wanted to do. And then I put my first book out in 2018, or no, I'm sorry, 2019, for my son's first birthday. And it was a book that I had written that was kind of inspired by, that was also a real life thing that had happened. I was in, I mean, not to drag down the room, but I was in a really bad car accident. So I was hit by a semi truck. I had staples in the back of the head. I had the whole physical rehab, cognitive rehab, and I just had a really hard time reading. That was the bottom line. And rhyming was a big help. So I was determined to not let one moment define me. So I got to work and I worked on the book, Never the Lot, and it's all rhyming and it helped just kind of really sharpen my mind and get me back. And I ended up going back to school when no one thought I could. Went back to Wayne State and I graduated with high honors. So it's just a really good testament to just keeping going and don't let anyone discourage you ever. So, but that was my first book that I put out. And so that's why I think it was a very natural segue for me to put out a second one when all the madness went down last October. And so your second book is The Halloween Flight. Yes. It's like a pumpkin that literally is in the title that takes flight, but it actually happened to you in real life because your inflatable pumpkin went on an adventure by itself. Let me share. So tell me a little bit about how that all played out. It did. It took me on a ride. It took me flying personally. So yeah, we had a big 15, 20 foot pumpkin on our front lawn and the wind caught up really. It was just a very windy day. I watched the tethers kind of. Set it free, I panicked, my kids panicked, we all came running outside, they tried to help me, it was wild. I grabbed it, I flew off a little bit with it, but I dragged it back down to the ground. I saved the day, my husband caught it all in the Ring app, so naturally I edited it, and I turned it into a really funny little video, and then that's what spread like wildfire, became a viral overnight sensation that inspired the book, really. Really? So. And then tell readers a little bit about the journey that the pumpkin in this book kind of goes on. So in... You could read the book and see all the little Easter eggs that I planted in and say, oh, okay, this is funny. This is like the, what actually happened in the video and all that. And you could read it as something entirely different as well. So they're kind of two separate entities entirely. But yeah, so it's basically mom and her sons on a windy, windy day. They get this inflatable pumpkin from a little magic shop on Halloween. They fill it up. It gets bigger and bigger. And then all of a sudden it begins to talk and it's enchanted. Asks, invites them to jump on for a ride to go to the pumpkin kingdom and meet the king and queen and just have a fun party. And yeah, so they get on the pumpkin and it's just, you know, as a mom, you like it when it kind of hits a certain point in the book where it starts to lull them to sleep a little bit. So we've got a moment where, you know, it's a party and then all of a sudden it just kind of calms down. So you're ready for bed and bath and all that. And so, yeah, it's just, I'm really excited about it. It has been very well received. I had a chance to read it to both of my kids' classrooms, and they were just jumping and bouncing up and down with excitement. They'd seen the video before. So I'm just, you know, I took this viral moment, I guess. This pumpkin has now become a part of pop culture, really. It's everywhere. And so I thought, I have this platform now that's pretty big. It's, you know, and I wanted to take that opportunity to do something important with it. And for me, that translated into getting kids to read and to, you know, and to express themselves through art. I illustrated it too. So, you know, that was my way that I translated it into doing something important, I guess, with it. So, yeah. And so with this story, even though it's like. Fun. It's like, like you said, a nice little lullaby kind of. What would you say if there is a lesson that you would love adult readers or even like the little ones to take away from this? A lesson in it? I think it would just be, I mean, I kind of give mom a little bit of a superpower in it, which I think is kind of interesting. A lesson probably to just Have fun. Grab life by the giant flyaway balloon and just enjoy your night. You know, have a really good time. Yeah. And I feel like there's so much going on in the world nowadays. It's like you need to have like. So which is why I think reading is so important because it kind of takes you into like a different universe, a different world where you can like get away from everything that's happening right now. And I love when you're able to like make stories like fun and entertaining and not just for the kids, but also for the adults, because 9 times out of 10, the kids can't really read yet. The parents are going to have to read it. So anytime you're able to kind of make it interesting for them, I think that just shows kids like, oh, well, reading can be fun and, you know, I can have fun doing this and doing that. And so what's next for you? Are you going to write more books? some real life events happen that motivate you to write more? Well, I hope it calms down a little bit with all the excitement in the front yard. But so I actually, I write all the time for my kids. So I have a very deep well of books that I've done and illustrated that I just read. I never thought would leave our little bubble of our living room. So now I'm kind of like, maybe share these too. I've got so many of them. When the kids have something go on in their life, it's easier. sometimes for me to just make a little story out of it and help have them help me create these little characters and then it solidifies it more like the Halloween flight for instance when i was writing it my son Lennon was in first grade and then We're learning about the difference between prose and rhyming. So I was like, what a great opportunity to do something. So the first part of the book is in prose, and then it switches to rhyming. And it's very clear that the magic's here now. And because the magic's here, the whole book switches to rhyming. So I thought it was a really neat tool for him to, you know, solidify that whole concept. So I just kind of, I tie things in for my kids. And I think that universally, it kind of helps everybody. Yeah. And I think it's going to be cool, too, because years down the line, they're still going to have like those books for their kids and be like, oh, look, you know, my mom, you know, wrote this story. It's OK. Before I let you go, is there anything else that you would like to say to fellow book lovers out there? I think just, you know, um... Time is divine you know it's just one of those things I thought that I it was something I wanted to do my entire life and in my 20s I was hoping that this was going to happen for me at a younger age but I think that the timing of this has just been perfect you know like how great that I got to go and read this to the kids classes and they're all excited about it and And one of the little girls came home and said, the mother reached out and said she was drawing inflatable pumpkins all night. And I got such a kick out of that because it's like, okay, this is my why. This was the reason I did this to get kids excited about reading. And they were so excited to read the book. And I guess that's just kind of my mission is to just make reading a really cool thing and a fun thing that adults and kids can do together. Yeah, well, your writing is cool, your stories are cool, you look cool, so it's just an Oh, my goodness, yeah, thank you, yeah, and, you know, yeah, it's just, just the illustrations and stuff, I mean, one thing that's really kind of fun, one, well, not fun, but really interesting, too, is, you know, when I used to work, I was, I'm an art dealer and I even worked for the DIA, which, you know, is like our big, we love the DIA. I worked on the Great Art New Start project that, you know, tripled it in size. So I helped in the development that helped it, you know, literally make its wings. But I'm really, you know, I love art and that's what kind of drove this whole, you know, ship for me. But this page specifically, since I've... So, um... A really great friend of mine when I was in the art business was Peter Max, and he used to hang out with like the Beatles, and that's why I named my, you know, my son Lennon, right? I've got another one, Leopold, but Lennon, and the night that I learned of his passing, you know, we used to have such a great relationship. I always ate breakfast with him, and we'd have like blueberry pancakes together, but I did this page, you know, because we would always talk about the cosmos, and mathematics and things like that. So everything really can mean so much too. So I just, I'm just encouraging artists and writers to just get out there and do your thing, right? Spread up. Spread the creativity because creativity is just intelligence having fun, isn't it? Exactly. Okay, so much for everything that you're doing in the book community, keeping kids and adults entertained and most importantly, for taking the time to come and chat with me and fellow book lovers out there. We greatly appreciate it. Thank you so much for having me. I love this show.