Mary Tomasi-Dubois

Hello Everyone,

Welcome to my site.  My guess is that you were led here because you enjoy reading stories involving time travel, where the characters visit exotic places and experience heart-pounding adventure.  I know those are the kinds of stories I like to read, and most of all, that’s what I like to write about.

This is my first time blogging.  I’d like to begin by telling you how I started writing in the first place.

As you can read on my About the Author page, I’ve done many different things in my working life.  One thing I’ve always been interested in, though, is words.  When they’re put together in just the right way, they can sound lyrical like a beautiful poem.  When I first started writing, I noticed that if I replaced a word here and there, with just the right one, I could make my story come alive and truly portray what I was trying to say.

As I continue to write, my characters have become real to me and in my mind they tell me what’s going to happen next in the plot.  Sometimes I’m as surprised as I imagine my readers might be.

When I was a young woman, I didn’t read as many books as I would have liked—something always seemed to get in the way—parenting, working, housekeeping.  Now it seems I’m as busy as ever and still don’t find the time to read everything I want, but when I do read, I thoroughly enjoy what I’ve chosen.  The stories always transport me to some other place and time, as all good stories do.  That’s been one of the goals I’ve set for myself in writing.

When I began, I decided I would write for young readers.  That was a little over eleven years ago, when I learned I was going to be a grandmother for the first time.  Recently, though, I’ve been playing with other types of stories.

When my son got married, he and his new wife decided to wait before starting their family.  So, both sets of parents could only anticipate becoming grandparents.  When the two were finally ready to start their family, my daughter-in-law miscarried and we all were concerned that they might not have children at all.

But, one day, two years later, my daughter-in-law walked into my office and placed a photograph on my desk.  That was the day I received the thrill of my life.  Right there before my eyes, was the most beautiful baby boy I had ever seen (besides my own son, of course).  I could easily make out his beautiful features in spite of the blurry grey tones of the sonogram picture.  “You’re really going to be a grandmother,” Chris said, and we both hugged and cried.

That night I went into my home office, sat at my laptop and began writing a medieval story based on the song, Puff the Magic Dragon. It was supposed to be for my new grandson, but,every time I would read the song to get inspiration for the story, I’d start to cry, especially when I read the stanzas:

A dragon lives forever but not so little boys Painted wings and giant rings make way for other toys.

One grey day it happened , Jackie Paper came no more and Puff that mighty dragon ceased his mighty roar.

His head was bent in sorrow, green scales fell like rain, Puff no longer went to play along the cherry lane.

Without his life-long friend, Puff could not be brave, so Puff that might dragon sadly slipped into his cave.

After about a month, I realized my story wasn’t just for my grandson, it was really for my son. It finally struck me: He wasn’t a child any longer—he was a man, a husband and a new father.  My tears flowed for how quickly time goes by and how childhood is gone in a flash.  Then I realized that through the story I wanted my son, and grandson, to remember to always be ‘childlike’; to keep the spirit of wonder and discovery alive—and to always be as trusting as a child.

When I finished my story, I tried getting it published, but no one was interested.  I put it aside.  About three months later I reread it, and it dawned on me that there was no plot, just a series of scenes.  That’s when I decided it was important to take writing classes if I ever wanted to be successful.  I still take workshops and continue to work on developing my style.

In writing for young people, I hope to create stories that are exciting enough for them, but intriguing enough for an adult, and I do have an adult following here in my town.  What I would like is to have the child and his/her parent/caregiver read the stories at the same time, so that they might get into a discussion of the plot, the style, the characters, etc.—much as a book club does.  My goal is to encourage reading.

For me, one of the pleasure of writing is doing research.  I want to make my plots as believable as possible, and even try to tie in some history along the way.  As I mentioned earlier, I’m fascinated by time travel and alternate dimensions, and while there have always been stories using these themes, I think there is even more interest today, because every time I turn on my TV, I see that many of the programs use time travel in their plots somehow.

My first published book, The Mariner’s Secret, was inspired by my husband, Paul.  We were sitting in a restaurant in Tiburon on our way to Calistoga for the big Fourth of July celebration.  Over lunch he said, “Wouldn’t our parents (both sets had long since passed away) be in awe at all the changes that have taken place in the world?  You should write a story of two people from a past generation coming back to life in this time frame.”  I thought that was a good basis for a story, but since I write for young readers, I decided to reverse the story and write about a brother and sister going back in time—and my characters, Matt & Heather were born.  They’ve become so real that both Paul and I talk about them almost every day.

The second story, Danger in the Jeweled City, has the same characters.  This time they are transported back to 1915 San Francisco and the Panama Pacific International Exposition.  My goal was to introduce my readers to the last ‘Great World’s Fair’.  During my research, the fair sounded as exciting to me as Disneyland—and I love Disneyland!

I’m currently working on the third book in the series.  It will feature Sam, the gardener, as its main character.  Sam was a mariner in his early life, and my story will tell of his adventures as a ship’s boy on one of Captain Wilkes ships during the 1848 American Exploratory Expedition, in which Captain Wilkes had been given the responsibility of circumnavigating and mapping the globe for the United States.

I hope you enjoy the podcast of my stories and look forward to your comments, suggestion, and just chatting.