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Stuart McNolty loves telling stories to children. It’s something he’s been doing for quite some time.
“I’ve always enjoyed telling stories,” he said from his home in Pemberton. “I have four grandchildren who I’ve always made up bedtime stories for, and of course there were my own children who I told stories to as well. When it’s not my own children or grandchildren, it’s other children always asking, ‘Uncle Stu tell us a story.’”
Over the years, his stories have so caught children’s imaginations that he was encouraged to put some of them on paper. So McNolty, who has been in logging all his life, did just that, and recently self-published his first story called The Snot Monster.
“It’s an expensive sport,” he joked.
At first, McNolty said he looked into getting the book published through the traditional route of an established publishing house.
“That is a very long process,” he said. “You need to have an agent before you can even approach a publisher, and even then chances of getting published are usually very low. There’s a lot of waiting around for an answer.”
Although some publishers did show interest in the children’s book, McNolty continued to look around and decided to publish the book using local resources instead.
First, he enlisted the aid of Mount Currie artist Donna Jane Dan to illustrate the book.
“She is so very gifted,” McNolty said. “I asked her if she would be interested in working on the project and after I drew some rough ideas of how I saw the Snot Monster, she just dove right in. She did such excellent work.”
Then, McNolty went to Squamish for the printing and publishing of the book.
“I went right to InBiz in Squamish and they took care of the rest,” he said. “It took about two or three weeks for the artwork to be completed once we got started, and then a few months for the printing and publishing, which included InBiz getting all proper copywriting and ISBN numbers and everything for the book.”
The Snot Monster tells the tale of (what else?) a monster who lives in a weeping willow tree and does particularly gooey things to children.
Currently, the book is available locally at places like the Pemberton Drug Store, as well as from McNolty himself through grandpastalltales@gmail.com. The idea behind the email address came as a direct result of his story-spinning abilities, he said.
“It came from my granddaughter,” he said. “She was always asking about my stories, ‘Is that the truth, Grandpa?’ ‘Is that a lie, Grandpa?’ Now she just calls them ‘Grandpa’s tall tales.’”
The book has so far sold quite well, according to McNolty. But he said he’s still considering whether he’ll continue to publish his amazing tall tales for tots. But he will still tell stories in the meantime.
“Just the other day I was making necklaces out of deer antlers, and I started telling one child they were dragon’s teeth,” he said with a laugh.
Tell us another story, Uncle Stu.
