Interview by Ed McManis
Wayne McDonald spent his career in the U.S. military, retiring as an Air Force Colonel. In the most unlikely of second careers, he is now enjoying his time in the spotlight as a children’s author. McDonald’s first publication, “Can You Guess Who I Am?” was published in July, 2024, by Living Springs Publishers, and has been well received.
The book is a combination of riddle poems and colorful, charming illustrations, challenging the reader to guess the mysterious animal on the next page. The animals are an eclectic bunch, from the well-known—bison, giraffe—to the more exotic such as the axolotl. The poems sneak in bits of “teacher” information and dashes of puns and humor. (To wit, regarding the axolotl, “You now know a ‘lotl’ about us….”)
McDonald also had the bonus of working with his daughter, BJ—Bettye Jean—on the book. He explains, proudly, in his slight, slow southern drawl, “BJ is a wonderful artist.” For BJ, an accomplished painter, this is her first book of illustrations. The animal portraits she’s rendered are colorful, charming, and reflect her dad’s artistic intent and vision. On a Sunday afternoon in Centennial, Colorado, I got the story for the McDonald collaboration.
Ed: How did this book come about?
Wayne: There’s more than one answer. When Petunia here (points to BJ) was a kid, we went down to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. They were feeding lettuce to the giraffes. My wife was wearing a straw hat, and on the hat there were some artificial flowers. The giraffe reached down, grabs my wife’s hat off of her head, and he’s going up and my wife reaches up—she’s a feisty thing—she reached up and yanked it right back. If you look at the first verse in my giraffe poem, her name “Marge” is there. That’s how I started writing this book.
Well, I first started writing silly poems way back in high school. And I got in trouble. They printed one in the school newspaper. I lived in rural North Carolina. There was a little creek there called Buzzard Branch. About ten miles away was the high school. About ten miles on the other side was a place called Beaver Dam.
I wrote a poem about a baseball game between Buzzard Branch and Beaver Dam. Anyway, at the end of the poem the line was “The game was called not because of darkness but because the moonshine was gone.” There was some moonshine in North Carolina, you may have heard about that. (Laughs) Anyway, the poem got approved and into the paper. Later we found out some people were upset because they thought I was making fun of Beaver Dam. I was just making fun of myself. But I learned you’ve got to be careful what you put on paper.
Ed: The writer’s burden.
Wayne: Then, in college I was working on my Master’s in Education and I asked my professor if I could write a poem instead of a term paper. That was unusual. He said okay. I wrote a shape poem, which may not be like someone else’s shape poem.
Ed: Those were a thing in the 50s and 60s. I’m thinking of Corso’s Bomb poem.
Wayne: Well, I had to alter the lettering, scroll the paper, get things lined up. Very painful. But he gave me an A. He sent it in to try and get published. It didn’t, but boy, that made me feel good.
Ed: UNC, so Chapel Hill? Duke down the way?
Wayne: We don’t talk about that school. (Duke: Laughs)
Ed: Now, your degrees were in education?
Wayne: A B.A. in elementary Education, and a Master’s in Education Administration.
BJ: It’s interesting that he never really used either. You never taught, did you?
Wayne: Briefly in California. I was going to grow up to be a principal, but I never grew up. The Vietnam war was going on and I went into the air force ROTC program and retired as an Air Force Colonel. This is where we stayed (Colorado) after my military career was finished.
Ed: Was your training here, Colorado Springs?
Wayne: No. It was all over the place. ROTC in North Carolina, summer camp down in Alabama, and then I was stationed in Biloxi, Mississippi. When Hurricane Camille came through. You’re younger than me but you might have read about it. It was a big deal back in those days. Then they sent me to Kunsan, South Korea, Great Britain, back to North Carolina. Then I was a reservist, and they offered me the option to go back on active duty, which is very unusual. So, I said okay. We packed up our Conestoga wagon when she (BJ) was a kid, you might have been in first or second grade—
BJ: Second grade.
Wayne: Moved to California.
BJ: No, no, no, no. Second grade is when we left California. When we went, I was in Kindergarten.
Wayne: Okay. And I was stationed on Treasure Island. In the bay between San Francisco and Oakland.
Ed: I know where it is; I got lost there a couple of times off the Bay Bridge.
Wayne: (Laughs) Good luck trying to get onto the bridge from the island if you don’t have a big engine. Anyway, we lived up north by Novato. Hamilton air Force Base is up there.
Ed: And you have three kids?
Wayne: Katie. Katie Beth. Then, Bettye Jean, BJ. That’s two sorta’ southern names. And Jordan Wayne. JW.
BJ: J-dawg.
Wayne: She calls him J-dawg. (Laughs)
Ed: So, BJ, you’re the middle child?
BJ: Yes.
Ed: Oh, that explains so much.
BJ: Right. (Laughs)
Ed: And how many grandkids?
Wayne: Three. Katie has two, and BJ has Reagan.
Ed: Had you written anything before this book?
Wayne: No. Again, Petunia here, BJ, more than once said, “Why don’t you write something dad?” Then, I wrote this poem, about the giraffe and a friend of ours has a small publishing company. So, for some reason I sent him this poem. He liked it, said it was good timing, they were looking for someone to write a children’s book. So that’s how this all started.
Ed: Now, these poems have another dimension. There’s the “Guess Who I Am” riddle part. You’ve added a learning component. I guess you get to use some of that education degree. How’d you decide to integrate that piece?
Wayne: The best answer I can come up with is that I read a lot. And I used to read a lot of Whodunits. James Patterson, John Sanford, where you’re trying to figure out who did it. Where, when, how, what. I think subconsciously maybe I had the idea of writing the poems and making them a riddle for a kid to figure out, sort of like a mystery book.
Ed: And you also have the bit about “further research” listed.
BJ: It should be noted that all of his research was done with library books. He put himself in the children’s section and found all of the books about animals. I don’t think you got online—
Wayne: I did that also. I was looking for animals that were interesting to me. Something unique, not just the everyday, common animal.
Ed: Right. Like this guy. (I flip to the Axolotl, a unique salamander) Pretty unusual. You wouldn’t think of this guy.
BJ: That would be my daughter’s idea.
Wayne: My granddaughter…kids her age love the axolotl. That’s what they look like (points to illustration) after breeders get hold of them and breed them for certain traits.
Ed: Axolotl breeders? Who’d-a-known—
Wayne: No, “Who’d-a-thunk?” (Laughs) Kids like the more colorful ones. I try to find the animals that are interesting to me and that I think kids will be interested in once I tell them about it. And I look for animals that have some coloration that will help BJ paint a pretty picture.
Ed: Like this spider. (Point to the illustration of the Jumping Spider)
Wayne: I asked BJ for the most colorful Jumping Spider she could find.
BJ: People love and hate that picture. There were mixed emotions.
Ed: Because of the innate spider issue?
Wayne: I think so. I had two women admiring that until they realized it was a spider.
Ed: I have this picture. (Penguin family) They’re so cute.
BJ: Ah, thank you.
Wayne: You know, they poop a lot—
BJ: Oh dad!
Ed: Well, you’d know. You’ve done the research.
Wayne: The librarian at Koelbel told me that kids, especially boys, like for you to write things about poop. And the librarian at my granddaughter’s school says, “Yep. You gotta’ have something about poop. That’s a winner.”
Ed: Back to this book. When and how did you connect with BJ on this project?
BJ: I’ve known him for many years.
Wayne: (Laughs) That was my line. We’d never done anything like this. Obviously, we’ve collaborated over time in trying to grow our relationship as a kid and a parent. We haven’t completed that process but we’re working on it. Anyway, I may have helped when they were in elementary, middle school, essays they’d written—
BJ: Grammatical corrections. That was your role. Grammar checker.
Ed: Grammar police, uh-oh.
Wayne: And Marjie, my wife is really good at math.
Ed: She was in education also?
Wayne: She was an elementary teacher, then a principal. Now she’s retired and does fulltime daycare.
BJ: Grandkid daycare.
Ed: So, for you, BJ, education was a big part of your world.
BJ: At one point, my mom, dad, and I were all at the same school. When I was in elementary, my mom was a teacher at the school and my dad was a paraprofessional.
Wayne: After I retired from the Air Force, I worked in three different schools. An after-school care program, and in one school I helped students with reading. They all have a southern accent now. (Laughs)
Ed: That’s great. You don’t need grammar if you’ve got a good southern accent.
Wayne: One of the best days of my life, I was in a library in Southglenn, and a boy, maybe middle school, came in and asked, “Are you Mr. McDonald?” And I said, “Yes, I am” and he said, “You helped me so much when I was in elementary and struggling with reading.” That just made me feel so good.
Ed: That’s a great story. What teachers work for. Now, for the illustrations, did you ask her or did BJ come to you?
Wayne: I went to her. I twisted her arm.
Ed: Was the book completed?
Wayne: No, I was early in the process. The gentleman I was working with for the publishing, knew BJ very well.
BJ: Well, it’s Reagan’s other grandfather. That’s the connection.
Wayne: And we both knew immediately that BJ would be great. She’s never illustrated a book, but she’d done lots of paintings. Everybody I show the book to, they see the racoon (on the cover) and they smile. The librarian at Koelbel told me, that whether the book succeeds or not is going to depend on the pictures. It’s a combination; you need both.
Ed: What was your timeline for the book.
Wayne: Yesterday. (Laughs) I started writing after back surgery in November of ’23.
Ed: That’s pretty quick.
Wayne: It was published in July. About nine months.
Ed: But you’d been thinking about it for a long time. It had been gestating—
Wayne: Ooh, I don’t know about “gestating”— (Laughs)
BJ: Percolating—(Laughs)
Ed: Well, up north we call it gestating.
Wayne: That’s pretty discombobulatin’.
BJ: Well dad, I don’t know, maybe I get that from you. When he started, he was just “all-in”.
Wayne: I can focus.
BJ: We were on vacation in Moab, and he was like, “I can’t go to bed yet. I have to work on my poems.”
Ed: Did he give you the poems as he finished them or all of them at once.
BJ: He’d give one or two as he finished, but he wasn’t sure which ones would go in the book. He has, how many?
Wayne: Close to a hundred.
Ed: So, there’s plenty of material.
BJ: Book Two has started.
Wayne: I’ve written the poems for book two. In the back there’s a poem about animal senses. There’s this book here. (Points to the book title) Ed Yong. “An Immense World, etc.” I was reading in Koelbel library and Kelsey Reynolds, librarian, has made such an impact on me and making this all happen. Another librarian told me Yong’s book would be a great resource. It’s about 400 pages, dense facts. Made my head hurt. I do not come from a really good science background, And I’m aware of that, so I look for ways to fill that gap. This book was fantastic. The last poem, I got from reading his book. My goals are to show that one, I respect all animals. And that they have senses we don’t have, and I’m trying to open people up to that.
Ed: Did the publisher provide much publicity and marketing?
Wayne: No. It’s a small company. That was pretty much up to me. What I started doing earlier this year after recovering from my back surgery, I began reading in elementary schools. I ran into a librarian who loves poetry, wanted to encourage poetry and I was able to read to a number of grade levels there. And I’ll be going to my granddaughter Reagan’s school. Also, I’m talking to Cherry Creek schools. I may be reading there on Fridays.
Ed: As a teacher I was always looking for something on Fridays.
BJ: Right! (Laughs)
Ed: Are you connected with any writing organizations?
Wayne: This goes back to when I first started writing, before being published. I have more fun when I’m not worried about going to a writer’s group. I have more fun when I’m not held to a structure, when I can write the way I want to. If you notice the poem on the back of the book. It talks about how unusually I may out poems together. I sometimes reverse words on purpose, I do different things. Sometimes I change the rhyme scheme from one verse to another. And I don’t care. (Laughs) I make up words, and I don’t want to go to some structured format where I’m afraid people would try and kill the…
Ed: The joy.
Wayne: It’s not like anybody would want me to be working in a structured environment.
Ed: You are your own man. A maverick.
Wayne: I may not profit or make anything. But that’s ok—
Ed: What is the publishing agreement?
Wayne: It started out 50-50 until they got their initial money back. It changed, which I totally agreed with, so that they get the first dollar on each book. I want them to get their money back. And I want them to want to work with me going forward on the second book, the third book and so forth.
Ed: Did you subcontract BJ’s artwork?
Wayne: If that’s what you call it. I paid her for each picture.
Ed: Were there children’s books, authors who inspired you?
Wayne: I actually didn’t read that many children’s books. I just used my warped sense of humor, my interest in animals, their uniqueness. And my interest in fun and trying to make it fun for kids to read. Some unusual things and some lighthearted things. In a riddle format with beautiful pictures. I’m trying to sneak up on them and teach them some things also.
Ed: You said you liked to read Whodunits. Is that what you read as a kid? Mysteries and animal stories?
Wayne: Sports. (Laughs) I read sports when I wasn’t playing sports. Baseball. And I played enough basketball to realize I wasn’t very good at it. And I learned to respect anybody who was any good at basketball.
BJ: My brother’s name is Jordan.
Wayne: After, you know.
Ed: Walter Davis, the Greyhound, he was UNC. He was a Nugget, too.
Wayne: And George Karl.
Ed: You played football also?
Wayne: I was the skinniest center in the league I was in. On defense I was a defensive end. I was about six feet tall and weighed 160 pounds.
Ed: Lean.
Wayne. Yeah, turned sideways, all you saw were my nose and my feet.
Ed: Now, BJ, as an illustrator, had you read a lot of kids’ books?
BJ: The answer is yes. If you remember, you hired me to be a children’s teacher. (Laughs)
Wayne: (Laughing) Computer, that was a rigged question.
Ed: I mean outside of your teaching profession.
BJ: I wouldn’t say.., I mean most of my children’s literature is from being a child, then working with kids. I never really left school. I worked at a school while I was in school. It’s kind of been my world. Elementary is a big part of it, and I have a young daughter. My mom initially was a stay-at-home mom before she went into teaching. And she read a lot to us. Dad was—
Wayne: As an Air Force Colonel, I was travelling around the country. When we were stationed here (Colorado) I was regional director stretching out to Hawaii. There was a lot of travel involved.
Ed: The writing, the way you describe it, it seems very contrary to being a Colonel. Do you think it was the other side of being a Colonel? The other end of the spectrum in a military hierarchy?
Wayne: This month I’ll be 79. I grew up in a “yes mam, yes sir” era in our country. It was an easy thing for somebody growing up in the environment that I grew up in to go into a structured career. Bu there was always, going back to that high school poem about Beaver Dam where I got in trouble, there was always a part that liked to write something humorous. That’s always been there. I’ve got a three-ring binder of poems that’ll never be published, about how bad a golfer I am. I’ve got a lot of things over time never intending to publish. It’s just me expressing myself.
BJ: I was gonna’ say, dad, I don’t think you had a lot of creative outlets at your job. You were all about systems and structure at your work, which you’re great at. But I think you also have this other side of you, this creative side that came out building things, writing.
Ed: Now, the next book is?
BJ: Sea Critters. Here’s the racoon, underwater. I’m not quite done with it. (Shows illustration of raccoon SCUBA diving.) You never heard of the Underwater Racoon? (Laughs)
Wayne: I think the racoon would be a good mascot for all the books.
BJ: Dad thinks it’s a little too pudgy, I think it’s an endearing quality.
Wayne: The next book will have the octopus, the narwal, orca, sea horse, something called a red hand fish. It’s a combination of things kids will know very easily and then a few things they’ll learn.
Ed: Looking forward to it. Thanks for sitting down with me.
About the interviewer: Ed McManis is a writer, editor, & erstwhile Head of School. His work has appeared in more than 60 publications, including The Blue Road Reader, California Quarterly, Nimrod, Narrative, Lascaux Review, Compulsive Reader etc. He, along with his wife, Linda, have published esteemed author Joanne Greenberg’s (I Never Promised You a Rose Garden) novel, Jubilee Year. As a parent he’s memorized Goodnight Moon, Yertle the Turtle, Everyone Poops, and Anna Karenina.
More about Bettye Jean can be found at her website: www.bettyejean.com and @bettyejeanart