Published: May 28, 2008 10:35 pm            

Friends & Neighbors: Jean Adhya

Remember “Mississippi Squirrel Revival,” the classic ditty by Ray Stevens about a squirrel who gets loose during a church service in Pascagoula? Imagine the same scene except with two ferrets in a Dalton classroom and you have “Ferrets in Fourth Grade” — the just-released book by Dalton author Jean Adhya.

Adhya, a former chemist, wrote the book as a “lark” with help from her 10-year-old son.

“When he was at Pleasant Grove, he would come home with stories. We would work on constructing sentences and other things,” she said. “We have pet ferrets, and one day I was clowning around on the computer writing this story. He started giving me suggestions and pretty soon he said, ‘It’s turning into a book.’ So I finished it.” She said some of the characters are based on local residents.

Adhya, 51, grew up loving the written word and said she made straight A’s in English. Particularly enamored with science fiction, she spent many childhood hours reading works by Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein and composing stories of her own. However, it wasn’t until she read “Gone-Away Lake” by Elizabeth Enright that Adhya had a life-changing epiphany.

“It had good, clean fun family values and her descriptions of nature were wonderful,” she said. “For the first time, it occurred to me that an author is a ticket to take you to a place you’ve never been.”

After graduating from Firestone High School in Akron, Ohio, Adhya wanted to pursue a career in advertising but her family had other ideas.

“My family all worked in the sciences and I was expected to follow the family path, so I majored in natural science at Akron University,” Adhya said.

She and her husband, Dr. Atish Adhya, met at college and both worked as chemists for three years following graduation. They then relocated to Asheville, N.C., where Jean spent the next 28 years working off and on in the sciences … the desire to write still lingering.

“I thought about writing and would start stories but never finish them,” she said.

Adhya was pregnant with the couple’s son when they relocated yet again in 1997, this time to Dalton. After his birth, she began looking at life a whole different way.

“I started seeing real humor in children by watching him grow up, just the little things they say, their innocence,” she said.

In December 2006, a friend suggested she join the Creative Scribes Writing Group, which meets twice a month at the Creative Arts Guild. For the unfulfilled author, it was a match made in fiction heaven.

“We just clicked,” said Adhya. “Ina Connolly is the fantastic leader of the group. She’s so patient, a spark and a motivator. I’ve never been in such a welcoming group. They really make you feel like you can do it.”

The group was so supportive that when Adhya took the manuscript of her story to share at a meeting, members immediately suggested she publish it, she said. Adhya reluctantly agreed and began searching on the Internet for a publisher. PublishAmerica accepted the manuscript and paid Adhya one dollar for rights to the book for seven years. Adhya released the book using the pen name Tracy Ardella Longacre.

Wait a minute. A dollar?

“Independent writers don’t make that much money. It’s a labor of love,” she said. “I brought the dollar into the writer’s group, held it up and said, ‘Hey guys, you can make a lot of money in publishing.’ We had a good laugh.”

Copies of “Ferrets in Fourth Grade” may be ordered online at www.publishamerica.com for $9.95. A sequel, “A Very Merry Ferret Christmas,” is currently in the works. Adhya also hopes to do a book signing at some point.

She’s not really sure when or how she started writing, only that the urge has always been there.

“It just has to come out of you,” she said. “Just to have a setting, a place where you can create a world ... there’s nothing better.”

        

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