Sue Stockdale talks to Abigail Griebelbauer, who decided to start writing and publishing children's books. She didn't see the representation of neurodiversity in books, particularly picture books, while growing up which sparked the idea behind the first book.

After teaching for a couple of years, Abigail decided to pursue a dream of living abroad. Though Covid changed those plans, it pushed her to start writing and publishing children's books. The first book in the series, "D is for Darcy Not Dyslexia" is partly based on her life growing up with dyslexia and is published by The Passage Press which was co-created by Abigail and Cecilia, the illustrator of The Empower Empathy Early Series. 10% of the profits from their book sales go to the Inclusive Children's Book Fund which provides free inclusive books to teachers. The ICB Fund includes books from other authors and publishers. Currently, the fund is in the United States, but the plan is to expand internationally at some point in the future.

Abigail graduated from the University of Evansville with a degree in Special Education and Elementary Education. She met Cecilia while studying abroad at Harlaxton College in England and six years later they started working on publishing children's books together.

Find out more about Abigail Griebelbauer:

Website - www.thepassagepress.com
Instagram - www.instagram.com/thepassagepress
TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@thepassagepress
Purchase a copy of The Empower Empathy Early Series - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B19CX1NH

Key Quotes:

'I think education is so valuable and so important, and can help a person grow, change and evolve'.

'I realised if I'm telling my students that they need to follow their dreams and really follow whatever aspirations they have in life, that I have to do that as well'.

'For us it wasn't necessarily changing typical books, it was just adding the dyslexic character into the story'.

'Teachers use children's books all the time'.

'Writing a book and publishing it is a completely different thing than actually marketing the book'.

'I get inspired when teachers say when they read the book, the kids in the class who have ADHD, their eyes light up'.

This series is kindly supported by Squadcast –the remote recording platform which empowers podcasters by capturing high-quality audio and video conversations. https://squadcast.fm

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Sound Editor: Matias de Ezcurra (he/him)
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