By Robert Williams

Editor

The Story Book Trail in Vergas was part of the inspiration for area native Leann Schwandt Lehner’s second children’s book “Davey and Lou Lou’s Picnic,” which will be available at one of the stops on the fourth annual Vergas Back Roads Art Crawl Saturday, Sept. 19.

The characters, a wiener dog and loon, meet a new friend, who is kind of scary and a bit hairy. 

Davey the dachshund and Lou Lou the loon have a picnic planned. As they make their way to the spot, they wonder if a local legend they have heard stories about could be nearby. The feast is all set up; they hear splashing and twigs snapping-should they go and check it out? Why yes! Clues are found that might mean the legend is present. What will happen when they meet?

The book tells a story of friendship and acceptance and it came from an idea of a popular local.

“Vanessa Perry at Billy’s said to Carol (Schwandt-Albright, Leann’s sister), ‘Your sister should write a book about those three things,” Lehner said. “I do have to say, while she didn’t create it, Carol then told me that and I said, no, this is not a book that I planned to write and then the next day I wrote it.”

At first, Leann took the idea on as a challenge but it took shape quickly.

“Gosh, the story just showed up and there it was,” she said.

Lehner’s process begins by writing the story out longhand, before moving it to a computer for editing, prior to teaming up on illustrations.

Both of her books have been illustrated by Alais Fortier-Meyer, a 20-year, multi-disciplinary designer in the corporate world who decided to follow her dreams and launch her own art and design company.

The duo created Lehner’s first book “The Twelve Days of Halloween” and the relationship has bonded the two to future projects.

“She and I work really well together and she loves Halloween also, so we really worked well together on that,” Lehner said. “She also lives around the corner from me. It’s a known quantity that produces wonderful work and she was excited to work on this one too.”

In children’s literature, the pictures mean as much as the words and the two women have created a process to get what Leann sees in her head on the page.

“Mostly it is me and I have the vision – I just don’t have the talent to make it look pretty, but I know exactly what I want and how I want it to look,” she said.

Part of their process includes Leann doing her own color pencil drawing of what she wants something to look like and Alais brings it to life.

“She very kindly does not laugh at them and she gets it and there is very little that is adjusted or changed—we’ve worked together like that,” Lehner said. “If it doesn’t go together it’s nothing. Kids are your big critic or your big fan, they notice stuff and they will say things like loons don’t have blue feathers.”

Lehner’s current book also includes some factual information at the end of the story about loons, dachshunds, links to further reading and a little reminder that every society that has a figure or myth regarding, yetis, wendigos, bigfoots or hairymen.

“They’re there and they are part of our collective consciousness,” she said.

The Hairyman plays a pivotal role in the book’s plot, but a face or a full appearance in the book is a lot like in reality—there is a mystery to it left to the reader.

“I like intrigue and I like people to think about things more,” Lehner said. 

The original plan for marketing the book here was to have it ready for Looney Days but a schedule change did not work with the printing process. Fortunately, the Back Roads Art Crawl provided a second opportunity and one of a more concentrated demographic.

“I do intend to be at Looney Days next year,” she said. “I just like to meet people and talk to them and share my enthusiasm. It’s not about the sales and the money. The comments people have sent me, and comments from their kids, it’s so fulfilling to hear that kids love this. That, to me, is much more valuable and rewarding.”

Lehner has a third book in the works titled, “Pumpkin Days, Halloween Nights.”

Lehner grew up on her parents’ farm in rural Vergas and its location provided a unique way to describe it.

“I had a Frazee mailing address, a Vergas phone number and I went to Perham high school,” Lehner said.

The farm provided time and space to ponder and dream and was a building block to Lehner’s writing career.

“I did a lot of alone playing but it was a lot of good imagination for me,” she said.

Lehner graduated from Perham in 1980 and attended Moorhead State University to become a librarian, but the library school at the University of Minnesota closed causing Lehner to transfer to the University of Wisconsin. She finished her graduate studies in Madison and started working in public libraries, which she did for 36 years, working in nearly every department before becoming a director.

“I had a really great experience at grad school in Madison,” she said.

She worked at the Cooperative Children’s Book Center in the School of Education at the university, a research collection of children’s literature. Her time there coincided with the arrival of award-winning children’s book author and illustrator Kevin Henkes, who was doing research and beginning his career.

“He really became a sensational illustrator and writer, as well; it was fascinating to me to see him come in as a very young person and start what became his career,” she said. “I was fortunate to work there. I had determined I would be a children’s literature specialist—that helped so much.”

She retired during COVID and that allowed her time for writing.

“Finally, my stories could come to life,” she said. “Everything that was crashing around in my head for 30 years could come out.”

Lehner remained in Wisconsin, currently living in Lake Mills, a small lake town between Madison and Milwaukee. She returns to Vergas as often as possible to visit family.

“I just love the area—it’s my home town,” she said.

Autographed copies of both of her books will be available at her sister Carol’s clay art studio 1210 East Frazee Avenue, across from J&K Marine. For those who cannot attend the crawl, distribution partners and sales information can be found on Leann’s website: https://ohreallydarling.com/

Carol’s studio is one of 10 stops on this year’s art crawl, which features many artists, including Helena Johnson and Luke Fugere at Forest Edge Gallery, among others there. Other stops include Lost Highway Pottery and Boutique, Brianna Mae Design, Wildfire Furs, True Blue Flower Co., Leona’s Flowers, Turning Nature, Jody and Sherry Marquardt and Bugsy’s Boutique.

Participating artists will create one-of-a-kind scarecrows for this year’s crawl. These creations will be displayed in each studio and sold to the highest bidder. Visitors can also sign up for a door prize at each location. 

The crawl is sponsored and hosted by the Vergas Arts Club, a proud subsidiary of the Vergas Community Club. 

The Vergas Community Club has a link to an online brochure that features the artists and an interactive map of each stop. Find the brochure at: https://vergascommunityclub.com/event/back-roads-art-crawl/

Look for “Click for Featured Artists” to access the brochure.

The crawl runs from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 19.