Ellen's Project

I met Ellen when I was working at my previous job.
She had a very unique and grand idea about her books.

She wrote a children's story titled "When I went for a walk...". It's about a boy who went for a walk on the beach, and the fun he will have, meeting all different creatures, taking them along for his adventure.

She is a very academic and international lady and has lived in different parts of the world (very interesting!). So, her original request was to publish this story in English only format, and then making another book with Arabic starting from the other side (because apparently Arabic books read from right to left). Like a mirrored image, the ending comes in the middle.

What she brought was her manuscript (I believe it was shared by Google doc) and all the original artworks by Linda Shaw-Packard, an Island artist and her friend.

So, the process started from scanning each artwork (digitizing) and deciding on the finished size (there was a size constraint as it was originally to be published at the print shop). Because the artworks were in landscape orientation, we settled at 11x7", and it had to be coil-bound (as the shop was not equipped for perfect bound). I believe it was near Christmas and she was planning to leave for the holidays (or for the rest of the winter), so the deadline was pretty tight. Good thing other jobs weren't too busy at the time, and I spent many hours putting everything together and the first book was born!

If that was the first chapter of our journey, the second chapter started some time later in a different setting; I was not at the print shop any more and exploring my paths (and getting lost a little).

We kept in touch and she still wanted to work with me (thank you!). While I was wandering the desert or wilderness, she has found so many different languages translators (not necessarily professional ones, but people who speak that language and willing to translate her book).

She shared files for French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Hungarian, Polish, Greek, Ukrainian, Chinese.... (!!)

Excited and overwhelmed at the same time, I started to tackle French first (as requested). Then, moved on to Hungarian, Portuguese, Italian, and Spanish. There was a major learning curve when I did Hungarian because there were some characters that didn't display properly with the font I was using. But that's the fun of dealing with these unfamiliar(-to-me) languages. It is so fascinating, all these different languages and characters.... they totally make sense and can touch and move your heart if you know them, but if not, they're meaningless characters and scribbles.

After communicating back and forth for some time (and involving each volunteer translator checking the file and revising), I was truly happy when Ellen gave me these copies of the new books. (The top picture shows English, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, Hungarian, and French in order).

We found a publisher who are flexible (with smaller number of copies in each translation book) and can make these perfect bound books.
During this time, we explored sending English and English-Arabic book to Amazon, too.

After several books in our belt, we're moving on to next batch of books---Ukrainian is done, just waiting to be proofread by another person who speaks the language. I just finished Tamil (that's another very unique character language experience for me), and then hopefully starting Greek version soon.

It is lovely to meet with Ellen, listening to her enthusiasm for this project and her optimism for life. She's truly a cosmopolitan citizen, and it seems this project is also representing such cosmopolitanism. We met at a local cafe to discuss next steps and Ellen became friends with the staff, learning she was from Germany. She winked to me, as I left the cafe. She later told me that this lady can translate the book into German. Voila! That's her magic.

I am honoured to be on this journey with her and excited about where this takes us next.