Author Lisa Gastager

Only chance turned a mother-of-three into a book author

"Sticks, sticks, sticks" is the first published picture book by Lisa Gastager. The main protagonist is Fin the hedgehog. He shows boys and girls of kindergarten age that it doesn't take much to be happy. Sometimes all you need is a stick.(Bild: Tröster Andreas)

Lisa Gastager had almost given up on her dream of becoming an author when a fateful encounter changed the course of her career.

"Looking back, I was very naive," says author Lisa Gastager about her first children's book. "I started writing because of my first son, who is now eight years old. One day I thought to myself, I'll just send these stories to publishers. Maybe I'll be lucky and they'll be published."

Many publishers did not even open
However, the 42-year-old's plan was not quite so easy to put into practice. She wrote to at least ten publishers, but not even a handful even opened her documents.

It was a fateful encounter that turned things around. Gastager stumbled across a hiking guide with the same book title as her story collection. She contacted the author's agent. He became curious, wanted to read the mother-of-three's stories and offered to help her get started as a professional author.

"Then things progressed quickly. We found a wonderful illustrator in Monika Suska through the publisher," says Lisa Gastager. The result is a picture book entitled "Sticks, sticks, sticks", which tells the story of the little hedgehog Fin. The main protagonist of the rhyming story doesn't need much to be happy. A few sticks from his last walk in the forest are enough for him and his friends to be happy.

"For this story, I put myself in my son's shoes. He also has a passion for collecting and can enjoy the simplest things."

The picture book for reading aloud to children aged 3 and up is published by Magellan-Verlag and is available now.