by Jessie Mosser
Deborah Mortimer gave future and current educators a look at the pathway she took to becoming “a writer who happens to be a lawyer.” Cedar Crest college hosted the author who began to write children’s books to have representation in books that her son, nieces and nephews could relate to. Her immigrant parents from Jamaican and Venezuela pushed her to become either a doctor, a lawyer, or an engineer. After graduating from law school, dissatisfied, she pursued other certifications before finding freedom to pursue her dreams from someone who slipped her a piece of paper at a conference about writing. The slip of paper said, “start seeing yourself as a writer while you are working as something else. Say to yourself, you are a writer who just happens to be a lawyer.” That was the turning point for her future.
Admitting she craves power and control over the creative process, Deborah started Leap Forward Publishing through which she has self-published three of her own books and hopes to publish other writers with diverse voices. Her books include the following titles that are the start of a series of Zolah books that represent her six-year-old self: Zorah and the Very Big Question, When you Give a Girl a Puppy, and Summer Island.
Deborah speaks to kids in schools and fields surprisingly deep questions like, “do you feel fulfilled”, “what do you do when your self-affirmations fail”, and “how do you get over making a mistake”. She realizes that kids have questions, big questions. These questions sparked her next book in the Zola series: Zolah Questions Everything. Deborah Mortimer will be the “writer in residence” at Dodd Elementary School for the month of April. She shared ways to support the distribution of books written by diverse voices. More information about her blog and her books is available on her website: http://www.deborahcmortimer.com/