GOVAN, Sask. – Watching the craftiness of a female fox as it regularly crossed a highway near Stephanie Guethert’s Toronto area home inspired her first book.
In her story, Scarlet the fox stumbles across a plan that will change the world and becomes a helper to the narrator, Copper.
Stephanie and her publisher husband, Willy Guethert, who now live in Govan, Sask., two hours north of the farm where she was raised and that is still run by her parents and brother, are launching The Grand Muster at Canadian Western Agribition in Regina Nov. 24-29.
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“I started writing this book 10 years ago in Brampton, Ont., where the noise is 24 hours a day, the traffic 24 hours a day and the people … I couldn’t go with my husband to a park and find peace. Where was nature?”
The book asks a similar question.
She said humans tend to crowd out the other creatures on the planet, leaving no place for them to go.
The story took nine months to write by hand, 18 months to revise and then years to get published. Eventually her husband set up Top Hat Publishing in their Govan home and typed out the manuscript. They printed it on recycled paper and used a condensed typeface that reduced the book from 345 pages to 216, a commitment to saving trees that they proudly acknowledge on the flyleaf.
They have sold about 300 of the 3,000 books that were printed and say they have received enthusiastic reviews from most of those who have read it.
At one reading Stephanie gave for teenagers in Strasbourg, Sask., the young people kept asking questions and a teacher remarked she had never seen them so excited.
Stephanie said her book, which is intended for all ages, is a fantasy world staking out the territory of the popular Lord of the Rings epic, but with no sex, violence or coarse language.
“People feel good after they read it.”
The last words of The Grand Muster are “hence, the work begins.” It’s a teaser and Stephanie has already written a second book that the Guetherts hope to have out next year. They also hope to include illustrations of the characters and maps in the second book.
Stephanie’s concern for visuals started with her working life in a photo studio in Weyburn, Sask. After moving around Canada, the couple came to Govan seven years ago, bought the 1904 building that had housed the Royal Bank and began renovating its 5,000 sq. feet.
They also set up two businesses raising tropical fish and budgies for pet stores, but had to quit when Willy developed allergies. Stephanie likes to point out that both businesses were sold to Saskatchewan people and remain in the province.
Her preference for rural life is one of the reasons they chose to launch her book at Agribition. The animals are the same ones she observed while growing up on the farm near Fillmore, Sask., and the book takes place in the middle of the North American continent.
“I was born in Saskatchewan and live here now. That’s why Agribition seemed the right place.”
