Set That
Yawn Free

In The News

"A stay-at-home dad from Galway is on the verge of getting bedtime stories he made up for his daughter when she was younger published.

Stephen Turner (Steve), who lives in Clarinbridge, started writing when he was about 20 years old, but it was poems and lyrics he wrote rather than bedtime stories. He had a keen interest in music and began learning how to play bass guitar.

However, he was thrown a “curveball” when he was diagnosed with viral meningitis. He struggled to work as a result of the illness, and immersed himself more in music with his extra free time. He took part in an IMRO songwriting week in Maynooth and honed his writing skills even more. After gigging around the country with a few bands, Steve decided to take some time for himself because of health reasons, and started a family in 2015.

“Nothing can prepare you for the changes of becoming a parent,” Steve said. He found bedtimes and getting his daughter asleep particularly interesting, and always managed to soothe her with made-up stories.

These stories played a vital role when she ended up hospitalised with respiratory issues, and was admitted into hospital several times during winter months. “It was during this time when she was around 3 years old that we saw a spider slowly crawling up a door as I was trying to get her to sleep in my arms, so we made up a little story of where does the spider live?” Steve shared. That night, the story stuck in his mind, so he wrote it down the next morning and made it into a rhyming story. Using the same formula, Steve started to make up more stories for his daughter, who is now 10, and within a few months he had written 12 and designed them as booklets with drawings for his daughter.

Many of the books were inspired by what was happening at the time. “‘Henry the Hedgehog Went to Hospital’ is based on my daughter's trips into hospital, and ‘The Duck that Loves Cheese’ is based on a duck I owned that really did love to eat cheese. Other stories were often based on questions asked by my daughter like “can a frog fly?” and “Does a chicken go to a dentist?” Steve said. He did attempt to get them published at the time, but the replies were “less than helpful”, so he decided to upload them in the form of e-books on his website. He also uploaded them onto a website called lulu.com where people could buy them, but he only made €5, so “left it at that.”

Recently, Steve was inspired to try to get them published again after he had brought his daughter to a book signing and got chatting to the author. While looking for a publisher, Steve started to rework his stories, making them a bit longer and re-imaging the graphics, with a little bit of help from AI. “All the stories remain my own work and only the graphics have been touched up using AI, but in time to come I might redraw them all myself so everything is all original and 100% my own,” Steve shared. The story he felt had the most potential was ‘Set That Yawn Free,’ which is one he used to tell his daughter to help her fall asleep when she was much younger. “It always had me yawning while reading it,” Steve said.

He got a positive reaction to the book while sending it to publishers; however, it was from a hybrid publisher, meaning that the book will be published, but all costs lie with Steve. He hasn’t signed the agreement as of yet, and is hoping other publishers get back to him in the meantime. “As a stay-at-home dad, I don’t really have the money to pay for it to be published, and I’m totally open to having other artists rework the images for a published paperback or hardback if that is required,” Steve said. Despite the costs involved, Steve, his wife, and his daughter were all “elated with the news” that a publisher was interested."