About my picture books: “Path to the Palace” & “Escapades in Caves”
My pair of allegorical picture books for all ages, Path to the Palace and Escapades in Caves, merge the crafts of writing, photography, and design by showcasing my original imagery alongside my chapter-book-inspired stories.
While the stories follow different plots with distinctive places, both books share similar themes. We each have our own individual journey in life. Sometimes we need to go against the grain and forge our own path. What feels welcoming to some can be the opposite for others, and vice versa. Through “the comfort and coarseness of caves,” we discover the depths of our capabilities and experience the most extraordinary of rewards when “opening up [our] minds and hearts to the unfamiliar.” We all benefit by embracing and connecting with the vast range of extraordinary beauty that the world has to offer.
I wrote the first complete draft of Path to the Palace in 2008 following my solo travel adventure in Andalucía, Spain and northern Morocco (with additional inspiration from a bus ride between Boston and New York City).
Fifteen years later while working on a collection of personal essays, I felt compelled to write about my treasured childhood caves as creative therapy. But due to my grief following the destructive Hermit’s Peak-Calf Canyon Fire outside my hometown of Las Vegas, New Mexico, I struggled. If I wrote about my cherished and now-destroyed childhood playground as a non-fiction essay, it would lead me to a painfully dark place. I couldn’t comprehend an uplifting ending that could benefit readers — or me.
While going through my creative vault of unfinished work for inspiration, I revisited Path to the Palace that had lived dormant on my hard drive for years. I also saw my notes about a possible series inspired by my solo travels, including a rough concept about caves following my visit to Petra, Jordan in 2010. The experience of re-reading my story draft and initial caves concept helped me find a positive way to explore my complex feelings about caving in to darkness in order to open back up to the light. I then wrote Escapades in Caves in the same children’s chapter-book-inspired style. I also made edits to Path to the Palace so that both stories felt like a pair of allegories, designed to inspire readers to feel a deeper connection with life.
My decision to use photography instead of illustration came about after I realized that I had taken the photos needed to showcase both the real-life and emotional caves that inspired the fictional Escapades in Caves. After designing the first draft of Escapades in Caves, I revisited my photography of the places that inspired Path to the Palace. To my delight, I could design my photography to complement the fictional story in that book as well. I only needed a small handful of public domain and stock photos to fully visualize the literal and visceral journeys in both stories (and those are clearly sourced). I produced the two books in tandem, both visually and verbally. It felt so invigorating to finally sculpt these stories into physical entities.
As for why I’m publishing both books together as a pair, I love them equally. I can’t pick a favorite, and I want to share them to help inspire as many people as I can.
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© 2024 by Carrie Osgood | CLO Communications LLC
