June 29, 2025 • 27 mins
SS Coulter joins to discuss the development of the "Fossa Tales" series and her journey from corporate America to becoming an author. She dives into the creative process behind her books, including illustrations and character development, and shares how personal experiences shape her writing. The conversation covers future plans for the series, including a subscription model and educational activities for children both offline and on YouTube. SS Coulter explains her approach to engaging readers through character voices and enhancing digital presence. The episode wraps up with closing remarks, a call to action, and an outro.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Welcome back.
Or if this is your first time, welcome toreading between the words podcast.
This is where we dive into the spaces betweenthe words, which is where meaning and wisdom
stirs.
Join us as we open the door between the pageand the person.
You'll hear the heart of the author, thepurpose behind the book, and the transformation
to ignite your life or your business.
Hi, and welcome to another episode of readingbetween the words.
(00:23):
And today, we have miss Coulter for this.
And I'm gonna let you introduce yourself alittle bit before we actually talk about the
book and and what is going on with that.
Absolutely.
So hi, everybody.
I am SS Coulter, but my friends call meShannon.
(00:44):
But I love this because we have l s and s shere as our author name.
So can you experience but I love that youcalled me miss Coulter because that's I told my
husband, I'm like, what do I have kids call me?
We decided miss Shannon would be awesome.
So I love it, all of it.
So I am so excited to be here and talk about mychildren's books.
It's a line of books.
(01:05):
There are seven of them so far, and they arecalled the Fossa Tales.
The main character is Fossa, and he is a catthat I actually had.
I got him in my twenties, and his name wasactually Mufasa.
But I made him yeah.
I made he looked like a lion.
He had you know, it was dark, and he had thisbig mane, and he was, yeah, like our hair.
(01:27):
Yeah.
And it's we are right when Lion King reallycame out.
So she said, Mufasa.
My sister told me the name of Mufasa, I did.
But when I came out with my books and mycompany, which is called Planet Fasa, we
decided not to do Mufasa because of Disney.
Like, you don't wanna do something like that.
So Yeah.
We changed it to FASA, and I actually added ans.
(01:48):
So it's f a s s a.
And because everything's an acronym, thatstands for family activities, stories, service,
awards.
And that's every everything that we offer inPlanet Fossa, which is a different thing that
we talked about on your other show.
So
Try it on with some on the front
porch.
(02:08):
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's awesome.
And and I'm I'm glad you you mentioned all ofthat because we want to know about you too
besides your book.
So this is really great.
And and I'm so glad you're here today.
We're gonna get through this.
It's gonna be good.
So so you have seven books.
(02:30):
When you first wrote your first book, did youplan on making it a series of books, or how did
that develop?
Absolutely.
So in a weird way, the reason I became anauthor, I didn't plan to become an author, we
did this company I had mentioned, Planet Fossa.
And in a nutshell, that company is to giveparents tools to help their kids get offline
(02:52):
and get back into the real world.
So we were providing them with activities anddifferent things.
And to get the kids interested in theactivities, I wrote the stories so that there
would be animals and stories, and then the kidswould do activities that the animals were
doing.
So in a year, I came out of corporate America.
I was a communicator.
I would communicate internally what employerswere doing to their employees.
(03:17):
So my kind of writing was that I would writesome to the c suites, some to the hourly
employees, some to the salaries employees,sometimes truck drivers.
So completely different language, completelydifferent things that were important to people.
So it was very cool.
But I was doing some nontechnical writing, buta lot of technical writing.
So I come out of that.
My husband and I start Planet Bassa, and he'slike, you gotta write these children's books.
(03:39):
I wrote six books in a year.
Nice.
And the reason there were six now I have seven,but I was writing each one about one of the
animals that it was in our life and some fromchildhood, some from adulthood.
And all of them I would say the seven of themnow altogether.
It's really a chapter book.
But what I did is I took each chapter,introduced a new character, and I ended in a
(04:03):
cliffhanger so that the child wants to get thenext book.
But with the book, you have the story.
You have plot twists, hidden pictures,activities, coloring pages, word searches.
So that was yeah.
So that was the idea to get the kids readingthe book, meeting the character, doing the
activities, wanting to keep reading.
And then as part of this, there's an app thatgoes with it, which we won't discuss today.
(04:26):
But they get to go on the app and pick whichcharacter they wanna be.
So
Oh, yes.
We'll discuss the app because it goes with thebook.
I mean, it just goes without saying.
Yeah.
For those that are watching this, can you showus your book?
Oh, absolutely.
So I I grabbed all seven, so I'll go realquick.
But Okay.
This
is the
first one.
This is Where on Earth Am I?
(04:46):
And that is fossa.
Can you see okay?
Yeah.
I'm I'm just my my glasses that are really goodgot knocked off when the bull hit
us.
Bull.
Talk about the bull.
So I've got these that have these scratchesright in the middle of us.
Okay.
So that's the cat.
Yeah.
So that is Yeah.
So there's the cat with a blanket on it.
(05:07):
Okay.
So and then I have my gosh.
Alley cat.
So that's book two, and I can kinda give abrief summary of them.
But the characters, I'll have to tell you howwe design them.
Okay.
Yeah.
We'll just click.
And then
that one's got squirrels on
it.
Yeah.
And this is this is not out, so it's like atthe line between.
But that's, my fair cat.
(05:28):
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
The Extraordinary Scientist.
We've got King of Suckerhood, and then, yourlucky dog cat.
So that's all seven of them.
Dog cat.
So
it was really fun.
So when we developed these books and I can tella little more about them later if you'd like,
but I and my husband love animals.
(05:50):
We absolutely love animals.
And so I just and when I had Mufasa, my cat,I'll never forget.
He was one of the weirdest animals I've evermet.
He would I I joke about this, but not really.
I adopted him.
I didn't know how old he was.
It turns out he was was pretty old.
I thought he was younger because he came inwith another cat.
And then he I only had him for five years, andhe he passed away.
(06:10):
And when I brought him in, they said he wasreally old.
So I'm kinda glad I didn't know he was oldbecause I treated him like he was a little guy
young guy.
But Oh.
He was, yeah, he was hysterical.
I would be walking along, and he would justjump on me and hold on to my jeans, and he'd
scare himself all the time.
And I'll never forget.
I was in my condo in my twenties, and I lookedat him, and I said, one day, I'm gonna write
(06:31):
about you because he was so weird.
I mean, it was just
the weirdest, and he was funny.
So he became my main character.
And then book two, Alley Cat that I showed you,that was the cat I I adopted him with.
And I the the second story is what I believedhappened when they were out in the snow
together.
And then the third book is about my childhooddog, and then another one's about my cat, my
(06:53):
husband's cats and dogs.
So we actually sat down and wrote biographiesfor all of them, as all authors do with their
characters.
And it was interesting.
Yeah.
It was interesting for me because when you whenyou write a book and Ellis can, you know, tell
this too, but you really have to take a longtime before you start writing.
You have to figure out what your environmentlooks like, what your character
(07:15):
I'm I'm not I'm not in that.
I wake up 03:00 in the morning, and I'll have achildren's book done before my husband goes to
work that morning.
Well, because I was creating a a a series, Ikinda had to figure everything out out first.
So that's totally different.
And I sat there.
This is funny.
I was like, I'm a technical writer, so I didall this research.
Like, how do I do this?
(07:36):
And so, yes, all of my characters, have, youknow, pages on them saying what their what
their favorite color is, what they're scaredof, what their best qualities are.
Awesome.
How they how they interact with each other.
Because I'm envisioning this to go on for along time.
I've already written the I have seven.
I've already written the next 14, next sevenoutline of what's gonna happen.
(07:58):
Know.
And so they start interacting with each other,and you have to make sure how Fawcett interacts
with Allie is kind of the same as he interactswith Kathy, but his personality stays the same
just as human beings too.
I mean, their character
Right.
Dear.
That I just loved and lost.
And my husband and I are just, you know, cryingsometimes thinking of them, like, all the funny
(08:21):
things and writing what we I think they'd soundlike if they talked, you and stuff like that,
what kind of words they would
That's amazing.
It was really fun.
And then when we got them illustrated, I tooktheir real life pictures, and I showed a group
of illustrators.
And some are pretty close to looking like thereal animals did.
Some aren't as close.
I had to turn two cats into dogs because we didfocus groups, and kids are just they're more
(08:45):
open to dogs, so we couldn't have so many cats.
You know?
So if I have two two cats, I'm like, sorry.
You're dogs now.
But it was really fun, and this is all of themtogether here.
You can kinda see
them.
They did great.
They did a great job.
That you're holding up a poster of each one ofthem.
So that's two, four, six.
It's eight pictures.
I like that pile of them there.
(09:06):
All of together.
Yeah.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
Turned sideways.
Okay.
They're sitting side to side.
Yeah.
So it was it was super fun doing that.
And then the environment that they're in isactually my childhood neighborhood.
Oh, that's wonderful.
Yeah.
And that was fun for me because what I'mwriting here to get kinda back to the app and
(09:28):
the activities, I'm writing adventure stories,but they're adventure stories made up by the
imagination.
So
Right.
But you're using them based on your childhood,so you're keeping that childhood thought in
there.
It's not because sometimes when we write booksfor children as adults, it has an adult persona
(09:50):
about it.
So when you go back to thinking what it waslike as a child, the things that you did, it
takes on a very different persona.
And and I do get what you're saying about, youknow, creating these characters and everything
ahead of time so you know what they're doing.
I'm working with with a a writer right nowhelping her get her book done, and that's what
(10:14):
she's had to do is write each of thesecharacters, what they're doing, what they're
like, and all of that before History
is.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So you can get it all together in there.
And it does it makes for a much better book.
And because you're drawing from your ownpersonal experiences to this, I know these
(10:34):
books are fantastic.
It's been it's been really fun.
I heard you talking to another writer.
I can't remember her name, but about staringyourself and making yourself laugh when you're
writing.
So I I have a funny story for you.
So, unfortunately, I hope you don't care that Ishare this, but No.
Not at had a had a accident with a bull.
(10:58):
I'm so sorry for that.
When I was outlining the second seven books,when I was a kid in this neighborhood, there
was a bull, and he was behind the fence.
It was a farm, and he was so scary.
So, you know, we would walk over there, andhe'd be behind the fence.
And I know it's not true, but remember theyused to say that if you wore red, that the
(11:19):
bulls wouldn't come after you?
Yeah.
Right.
Oh my gosh.
She's gonna get us.
So I just Oh.
Yeah.
I don't know where that that came from.
So I just outlined I think it's the first one.
They use red when they're bullfighting.
Bullfighting.
Right.
Can see it no matter where you're at.
(11:39):
It's a really bright color.
It makes sense.
Now I have to say, my husband was wearing a redT shirt.
Oh.
And when we went out with a cowboy totranquilize the bull so that we could get the
lasso off of it, get the wire off of its leg,which is what we should have done in the first
place.
Yeah.
My husband had a red shirt on, and I told him,I says, you have got to change that because the
(12:04):
bull's already taking you down in a red shirt.
He is going to recognize that.
And the bull was watching, and he was watchingwhere my husband was going.
And it's like
So maybe
So he went in, and he changed to blue shirt.
And then
Maybe there is something to the red shirt.
Okay.
Maybe.
So I have my my littlest character in thatstory.
(12:25):
Like I said, it's just outlined, but I have herwearing a red bow.
And all the character's like
Yeah.
Oh, nice.
Because the bull starts, you know, noticingthem and and getting you know, started running
to him.
And I I'll never forget this.
I'm just writing this outline, and I freakedmyself out because I put myself back into the
head of myself as a little
Oh, yeah.
(12:45):
I started laughing.
Like, you're literally not in the story.
You are literally writing this story.
Like, it was it was a wonderful moment.
I just started laughing.
That tells you it's a good book right there.
And I just started laughing at myself, but thatkinda goes to the whole idea of Planet Fasa,
which, again, is trying to get kids backoffline while helping parents get them back
(13:06):
into the real world.
Because how many times do you think aboutyourself and your memories as a little kid, and
you have those memories of freaking yourselfout or being really excited or playing at
night.
I mean, that Yeah.
You can't forget that.
That is irreplaceable.
So
Oh, yeah.
Absolutely irreplaceable.
So, yeah, that was a lot of fun.
I just heard you talking about that with thatother author, and I was like, I've done that
(13:29):
before.
Made myself That's funny
I don't write horror stories.
I I Because I started to because I can writehorror stories, but I'm writing it.
And it just it's like, no.
No.
I'm grossing myself out.
I'm freaking myself out.
I am not writing
this Thank you.
Yeah.
Let's go to something else.
Yeah.
Wouldn't be able to either.
(13:49):
My stories are on hold.
Hey.
Firing about cats and
dogs.
Everybody out.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
So I think the other thing that has been was ahuge learning for me.
So there's such a long story to this.
But when I wrote the books initially, there wasthe six of them.
I never finished the seventh.
From our other podcast, you know that I weended up closing the business for a while and
(14:10):
then coming back to it.
So I never loved the books because I wrote themso quickly.
I had to write them with this business plan toget this business out.
When we
closed the course for the business
fall in love with your books.
Yeah.
And it and I didn't know
what I was doing.
You know?
So I'd read them, and I was like, they're okay.
So when I picked this back up again in 2020because I wanted to try this again, and we had
(14:33):
built a website before, and this time we havethe app.
And now I've got, you know, more parentingexperience and more entrepreneurial experience.
So I said to my husband, like, I'm gonna startfirst with the books.
I wanna get the books where I love them.
So I went out and I started doing moreresearch.
And you know what I was doing?
Because I was a technical writer, I was tellingeverything.
(14:54):
Like, Fassa is sad.
You know?
So and so, Ali, feels this way.
And I learned that when you you have to show,don't tell.
And that made such a big difference becausethen I would say, you know, Fossa frowned or,
you know, there were butterflies in hisstomach.
Instead of saying he's nervous, you say thereare butterflies in his stomach, and then the
(15:14):
reader can figure out what that is, which isalso good for your too.
So that was a huge thing for me, and I likethem so much better now because they were just
so worried.
Yeah.
Thank goodness.
Right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So wordy.
So I'm I'm much happy with them.
And then I had always had the seventh bookoutlined, and I had never finished it.
(15:35):
So I finished it, which is great because thecharacter in my seventh book is miss Loki.
Well, she's Loki, but my animal right now, theonly animal who's still alive is her.
Oh.
And I had never finished her book.
So, yeah, she's she's 19.
She's a 19 year old cat.
Awesome.
In the book, she's a puppy.
But I I'm like, you're fine.
(15:56):
She's like her personality.
Yeah.
But it was really wonderful for me to be ableto finish that first seven because at the end,
then it's like being done with a book.
You know?
So it's each of them is like a chapter with allthese activities and things behind it.
And so if you get all seven, you have a wholebook.
So that's That's awesome.
(16:16):
That's a really great way to do that.
And I wonder, without even realizing it untilyou were saying this, my Baxter's Heart series
about what happens to a pet when it dies, howdo the other pets in the home react.
And each one is a continuation of the onebefore, and I didn't realize that they were all
(16:40):
connected like that until you were talkingabout it.
And I was like, oh, that's interesting.
Because, yeah, you know, Max is talking withthe boy about his dog, and he's talking about
his parrots.
And so, of course, the next book is Max'sparrots.
And then the next one we're going to is theclassroom pets because they're at school, and
(17:00):
the teacher brings in the pet.
You know?
So it does continue on like that.
Oh, that's very interesting.
There you go.
Oh, who knew?
That's why I'm
here.
Obsess.
Oh, that's so funny.
Yeah.
It was it's been a wonderful experience.
I'm I have such a good time now because it'slike I said, I sat down.
(17:21):
I I'm not writing the second the second, whatam I saying, volume right now yet because we're
in the middle of getting the app together.
But it was so fun.
And I think it was a week, and it was probablytwo years ago.
I was getting a little nervous.
I'm like, well, when this takes off, I'm gonnahave to write more books.
Right?
What am I gonna do?
What am I gonna do?
And I sat down in a week, and I outlined thenext seven stories.
(17:43):
It just went out of my head.
Isn't that crazy when that happens?
That's that's awesome.
And and I'll I'll give you a little hint onthat because you actually had your first books,
and then you restructured them, and you didyour seventh book just boom like that.
Now you know what to do.
You know what's going on with it.
You know where they want to go.
(18:04):
You've already got the plan in your head.
You just don't realize it, and now you've gotit down on paper.
And wonderful.
I can hardly wait for these to to be completedand and available we can get all of them.
But now you've got your next set coming out.
The next set coming.
Yeah.
Right now, the first the first four are onAmazon.
I haven't released the other three.
(18:25):
They're done, but we're we're like I said, Ikeep saying we're rolling stuff out, but we
really are rolling stuff out.
And I'm hoping with the books and you can takethis as a business idea for you.
I'm trying to figure out how to sell them as aseries.
So excuse me.
As a subscription.
Because I would love kids to get one book thebeginning of each month because that makes you
(18:47):
excited that something's coming.
And the books, I I keep saying, but there's alot of meat in the sandwich.
Like, there's a lot of stuff in here.
We've got you got the story, and then I do andevery story has a valuable life lesson.
So this one is my persistence pays off.
So Fasa wakes up in a at a vet's office.
You don't know he's there.
And he is trying to figure out where he is, andhe uses his five senses to figure out where
(19:08):
he's going.
And at the end, he persists, and he getsadopted.
And so he says, He says my persistence paysoff.
He ends in a happy ending, but then I do twoplot twists where we see him make a choice that
takes him off the path to that happy ending.
And so then what would happen, he wouldn't getadopted.
So we learn in plot twist one.
If at first you don't succeed, try try again.
(19:29):
So the kids do a little activity to get himback on track.
And then plot twist two is mind over matter,and they do another little activity to get him
back on track because they want him to getadopted.
And then we go into five activities after that.
And one of the activities these all reinforcethe lessons and the things that he did in the
story.
So one of the activities is the five sensesscavenger hunt because he used his five So we
(19:52):
send the kids around.
And then all of the activities my favoritepart, I always say this, but all of the
activities have things to talk about.
And so I give prompt talking prompts to thecaregiver.
Like, he just went and did this.
Your son or daughter just went and did this.
Here's things to ask them.
So then you have something to talk to the kidsabout just because I always remember with my
(20:13):
kids, what'd you do today?
Nothing.
You know?
Yes.
How was it?
Fine.
Fine.
Yeah.
And something that LS knows that I haven'tsaid, these books and all the activities are
tied to points.
So if the kids don't wanna do it, you're like,you get 10 points, and then they can cash the
points in on the app.
No.
No.
Yeah.
That's really We have to talk to you.
(20:34):
But, you know, it's okay.
And then I also have the coloring pages inhere.
Another thing and the word searches, hiddenpictures, all sorts of stuff.
But another thing that was important to me whenI started writing these books back in 02/2008,
2009 when I started researching and this is notthe same now because I know your books aren't
like this, but I'm really trying to get kidsnot to have their faces in technology all the
(20:58):
time.
And the books that were available online forkids were so ugh.
I don't I don't have a nice word for it.
They were five words and then a picture in fivewords, a picture in five words.
And they were, like, three ninety nine.
And I was like, they are dumbing down ourchildren.
Like, they weren't and I know there's a lot ofgood handheld children's books.
(21:21):
And I'm sure there's other ones too.
But at that moment, at that time, what I waslooking at were really just not intellectually
stimulating at all.
So what I is I have lots of words, and I haveimages, but, like, a lot of words with each
image because I want the kids to imagine more,not to see everything happening.
(21:42):
That's kind of my big thing.
And I use big words because in the back of thebook, there's a word quiz, and I I say to the
kids, yeah.
On page two, you saw this word, and I give thema context clues.
Like, here you know, I say what it said in thebook, and you can go back and look and then try
to figure out what it means.
This is perfect
for people that are schooling their children athome.
(22:03):
I think so.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And and then those those words are in a wordsearch because then they're currently learning.
And then I have two other words forcing.
Yeah.
And there I have two other words which isavailable on my website and my coloring pages
too.
Because I figured if you have one kid and youget one book and one of them colors the pages,
I better have a place for you to coloringpages.
(22:24):
It says
That's right.
There you
My website is like, ugh.
I don't wanna get into that.
So there that's what I was saying.
There's a lot of stuff behind each of thesebooks because it's adventure with your
imagination, and then the plot twists and thethe activities reinforce the lessons.
They reinforce the imagination.
You're moving and playing, and then the parentsget to talk to them about it.
(22:45):
And I just really wanted a lot of stuff in thisbook, especially compared to those things I was
seeing on online on, you know, o nine.
I was really because our kids is are just assmart as we were.
You know what I mean?
We're just challenging them.
They're smarter than
I mean, look.
We never I didn't have computers available whenI was going to school.
(23:05):
They just didn't exist for the public.
You know?
And now my grandkids, you know, they're so farahead of me and everything.
Well, I mean what I mean by this is, though,they have the computers, and we want them to
learn those, but we're not challenging them offthe computers.
And I
and we're
like, oh, kids don't do this these these theythey don't do this these days.
(23:27):
Yes.
They do.
We're just not having them do it.
They can do everything we did.
Yeah.
They are just as imaginative.
We're just putting these screens in theirfaces.
So we're trying to give them more of, like, ascreen light childhood.
That's kinda what I'm going for.
And to me, if your daughter, you know, did thisbook with read this book with your kid on
Friday, and your kids come her your grandkidscome over, she can hand it to you.
(23:49):
You can do two of the activities with them.
And when they go home, they
can talk
you know, that's it was just trying to figureout a way to give a lot of offline activities
for people to do.
And I'm gonna plug one more thing because Ithink you'll find this hilarious.
I did realize that this was a lot.
And let's say the grandkids come to your house,and you're like, I want a little break because
parents and grandparents need breaks fromchildren.
(24:11):
But to me right now, what happens is the kidsare like, oh, I'm used to being online.
And so we get tired.
And we talked about this before, and so we'relike, fine.
Here's my tablet.
You don't wanna do that.
But sometimes if they can't come up withanything, that's what happens.
So what I did is for each activity in my book,I'm on YouTube, and I actually walk the kids
through the activity.
(24:32):
And then I say yeah.
And then
I say, okay.
And I put timers up.
I'm like, you have to go do this for ten,twenty minutes.
So I instead of just me sitting there doing it,put a timer up.
And my idea was parents can give their kids atablet or a laptop.
They'll see me.
I'll direct them what to do, and then they gooff and play.
And I'm hoping when they're off playing anddoing the scavenger hunt and everything, they
(24:53):
won't come back for a long time.
That's the whole thing.
So I'm showing them, like, you can usetechnology to find things to go and then have
fun off of technology.
Oh, absolutely.
And then I also on there as well is I read thebooks to the kids.
But Oh, good.
I'm not on there because I I didn't want themlooking at me.
I wanted them looking at the words.
(25:13):
But I do the reason I thought you'd appreciatethis, I do all the characters' voices and all
their meowing and barking and ugh.
So I really had to get to know my charactersthat way too because it's it was hard.
It's perfect.
Okay.
So you have to tell us I know we're we'rerunning short on time.
You
have to tell us how to find your website, howto find the app, and where to find the books.
(25:35):
Oh, yes.
Okay.
So all of those things are at sscoulter.com.
So it's s Shannon, s Sue, and then Coulter isc0ulter,.com.
If you go out there, all of my books arelisted.
There are a place to find coloring pages andword searches and all that stuff.
Excuse me.
And then the app, it we're in the midst ofdeveloping it right now, but we should have it
(25:59):
up and ready for testing in the next twomonths.
If you wanna go out there and be part of thattesting, please do.
It's gonna be free at that point because Iwanna know what is the easiest way that I can
help you inspire your kids to play.
So that's that's we're really looking forfeedback so we can get a whole group of people
doing this together because it's gonna take allof us kind of locking arms to change this.
(26:22):
Yes.
But, yeah, everything's at s@culture.com.
That's wonderful.
Thank you so much, Shannon, for being here andand being my guest.
I really appreciate all that you're doing.
That is just so phenomenal.
This is way more than just a book, so to speak.
You know, books usually are, but but you offerso much more.
(26:45):
You you include the whole family, and you makeit a total experience, which is just fantastic.
So go to sscoulter.com, and thank you so muchfor being here.
There
you go.
Our audience.
Go out and get those books.
Check out the website.
You know, be a part of the beta testing for theapp and and see how that's going.
(27:10):
And, thank you for being here.
Thank you for showing us your books, and we'llsee you next time on reading between the words.
I hope today's conversation on reading betweenthe words gave you a glimpse into the heart
behind the book and spark something new foryour life or business.
If you love this episode, join theconversation, share it with a friend, leave a
review, or reach out and let us know what spoketo you.
(27:31):
We appreciate your support of this podcast, andremember, your words have power too.
Go to lskirkpatrick.com/podcast.
Welcome back.
Or if this is your first time, welcome toreading between the words podcast.
This is where we dive into the spaces betweenthe words, which is where meaning and wisdom
stirs.
Join us as we open the door between the pageand the person.
You'll hear the heart of the author, thepurpose behind the book, and the transformation
to ignite your life or your business.
Hi, and welcome to another episode of readingbetween the words.
(00:23):
And today, we have miss Coulter for this.
And I'm gonna let you introduce yourself alittle bit before we actually talk about the
book and and what is going on with that.
Absolutely.
So hi, everybody.
I am SS Coulter, but my friends call meShannon.
(00:44):
But I love this because we have l s and s shere as our author name.
So can you experience but I love that youcalled me miss Coulter because that's I told my
husband, I'm like, what do I have kids call me?
We decided miss Shannon would be awesome.
So I love it, all of it.
So I am so excited to be here and talk about mychildren's books.
It's a line of books.
(01:05):
There are seven of them so far, and they arecalled the Fossa Tales.
The main character is Fossa, and he is a catthat I actually had.
I got him in my twenties, and his name wasactually Mufasa.
But I made him yeah.
I made he looked like a lion.
He had you know, it was dark, and he had thisbig mane, and he was, yeah, like our hair.
(01:27):
Yeah.
And it's we are right when Lion King reallycame out.
So she said, Mufasa.
My sister told me the name of Mufasa, I did.
But when I came out with my books and mycompany, which is called Planet Fasa, we
decided not to do Mufasa because of Disney.
Like, you don't wanna do something like that.
So Yeah.
We changed it to FASA, and I actually added ans.
(01:48):
So it's f a s s a.
And because everything's an acronym, thatstands for family activities, stories, service,
awards.
And that's every everything that we offer inPlanet Fossa, which is a different thing that
we talked about on your other show.
So
Try it on with some on the front
porch.
(02:08):
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's awesome.
And and I'm I'm glad you you mentioned all ofthat because we want to know about you too
besides your book.
So this is really great.
And and I'm so glad you're here today.
We're gonna get through this.
It's gonna be good.
So so you have seven books.
(02:30):
When you first wrote your first book, did youplan on making it a series of books, or how did
that develop?
Absolutely.
So in a weird way, the reason I became anauthor, I didn't plan to become an author, we
did this company I had mentioned, Planet Fossa.
And in a nutshell, that company is to giveparents tools to help their kids get offline
(02:52):
and get back into the real world.
So we were providing them with activities anddifferent things.
And to get the kids interested in theactivities, I wrote the stories so that there
would be animals and stories, and then the kidswould do activities that the animals were
doing.
So in a year, I came out of corporate America.
I was a communicator.
I would communicate internally what employerswere doing to their employees.
(03:17):
So my kind of writing was that I would writesome to the c suites, some to the hourly
employees, some to the salaries employees,sometimes truck drivers.
So completely different language, completelydifferent things that were important to people.
So it was very cool.
But I was doing some nontechnical writing, buta lot of technical writing.
So I come out of that.
My husband and I start Planet Bassa, and he'slike, you gotta write these children's books.
(03:39):
I wrote six books in a year.
Nice.
And the reason there were six now I have seven,but I was writing each one about one of the
animals that it was in our life and some fromchildhood, some from adulthood.
And all of them I would say the seven of themnow altogether.
It's really a chapter book.
But what I did is I took each chapter,introduced a new character, and I ended in a
(04:03):
cliffhanger so that the child wants to get thenext book.
But with the book, you have the story.
You have plot twists, hidden pictures,activities, coloring pages, word searches.
So that was yeah.
So that was the idea to get the kids readingthe book, meeting the character, doing the
activities, wanting to keep reading.
And then as part of this, there's an app thatgoes with it, which we won't discuss today.
(04:26):
But they get to go on the app and pick whichcharacter they wanna be.
So
Oh, yes.
We'll discuss the app because it goes with thebook.
I mean, it just goes without saying.
Yeah.
For those that are watching this, can you showus your book?
Oh, absolutely.
So I I grabbed all seven, so I'll go realquick.
But Okay.
This
is the
first one.
This is Where on Earth Am I?
(04:46):
And that is fossa.
Can you see okay?
Yeah.
I'm I'm just my my glasses that are really goodgot knocked off when the bull hit
us.
Bull.
Talk about the bull.
So I've got these that have these scratchesright in the middle of us.
Okay.
So that's the cat.
Yeah.
So that is Yeah.
So there's the cat with a blanket on it.
(05:07):
Okay.
So and then I have my gosh.
Alley cat.
So that's book two, and I can kinda give abrief summary of them.
But the characters, I'll have to tell you howwe design them.
Okay.
Yeah.
We'll just click.
And then
that one's got squirrels on
it.
Yeah.
And this is this is not out, so it's like atthe line between.
But that's, my fair cat.
(05:28):
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
The Extraordinary Scientist.
We've got King of Suckerhood, and then, yourlucky dog cat.
So that's all seven of them.
Dog cat.
So
it was really fun.
So when we developed these books and I can tella little more about them later if you'd like,
but I and my husband love animals.
(05:50):
We absolutely love animals.
And so I just and when I had Mufasa, my cat,I'll never forget.
He was one of the weirdest animals I've evermet.
He would I I joke about this, but not really.
I adopted him.
I didn't know how old he was.
It turns out he was was pretty old.
I thought he was younger because he came inwith another cat.
And then he I only had him for five years, andhe he passed away.
(06:10):
And when I brought him in, they said he wasreally old.
So I'm kinda glad I didn't know he was oldbecause I treated him like he was a little guy
young guy.
But Oh.
He was, yeah, he was hysterical.
I would be walking along, and he would justjump on me and hold on to my jeans, and he'd
scare himself all the time.
And I'll never forget.
I was in my condo in my twenties, and I lookedat him, and I said, one day, I'm gonna write
(06:31):
about you because he was so weird.
I mean, it was just
the weirdest, and he was funny.
So he became my main character.
And then book two, Alley Cat that I showed you,that was the cat I I adopted him with.
And I the the second story is what I believedhappened when they were out in the snow
together.
And then the third book is about my childhooddog, and then another one's about my cat, my
(06:53):
husband's cats and dogs.
So we actually sat down and wrote biographiesfor all of them, as all authors do with their
characters.
And it was interesting.
Yeah.
It was interesting for me because when you whenyou write a book and Ellis can, you know, tell
this too, but you really have to take a longtime before you start writing.
You have to figure out what your environmentlooks like, what your character
(07:15):
I'm I'm not I'm not in that.
I wake up 03:00 in the morning, and I'll have achildren's book done before my husband goes to
work that morning.
Well, because I was creating a a a series, Ikinda had to figure everything out out first.
So that's totally different.
And I sat there.
This is funny.
I was like, I'm a technical writer, so I didall this research.
Like, how do I do this?
(07:36):
And so, yes, all of my characters, have, youknow, pages on them saying what their what
their favorite color is, what they're scaredof, what their best qualities are.
Awesome.
How they how they interact with each other.
Because I'm envisioning this to go on for along time.
I've already written the I have seven.
I've already written the next 14, next sevenoutline of what's gonna happen.
(07:58):
Know.
And so they start interacting with each other,and you have to make sure how Fawcett interacts
with Allie is kind of the same as he interactswith Kathy, but his personality stays the same
just as human beings too.
I mean, their character
Right.
Dear.
That I just loved and lost.
And my husband and I are just, you know, cryingsometimes thinking of them, like, all the funny
(08:21):
things and writing what we I think they'd soundlike if they talked, you and stuff like that,
what kind of words they would
That's amazing.
It was really fun.
And then when we got them illustrated, I tooktheir real life pictures, and I showed a group
of illustrators.
And some are pretty close to looking like thereal animals did.
Some aren't as close.
I had to turn two cats into dogs because we didfocus groups, and kids are just they're more
(08:45):
open to dogs, so we couldn't have so many cats.
You know?
So if I have two two cats, I'm like, sorry.
You're dogs now.
But it was really fun, and this is all of themtogether here.
You can kinda see
them.
They did great.
They did a great job.
That you're holding up a poster of each one ofthem.
So that's two, four, six.
It's eight pictures.
I like that pile of them there.
(09:06):
All of together.
Yeah.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
Turned sideways.
Okay.
They're sitting side to side.
Yeah.
So it was it was super fun doing that.
And then the environment that they're in isactually my childhood neighborhood.
Oh, that's wonderful.
Yeah.
And that was fun for me because what I'mwriting here to get kinda back to the app and
(09:28):
the activities, I'm writing adventure stories,but they're adventure stories made up by the
imagination.
So
Right.
But you're using them based on your childhood,so you're keeping that childhood thought in
there.
It's not because sometimes when we write booksfor children as adults, it has an adult persona
(09:50):
about it.
So when you go back to thinking what it waslike as a child, the things that you did, it
takes on a very different persona.
And and I do get what you're saying about, youknow, creating these characters and everything
ahead of time so you know what they're doing.
I'm working with with a a writer right nowhelping her get her book done, and that's what
(10:14):
she's had to do is write each of thesecharacters, what they're doing, what they're
like, and all of that before History
is.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So you can get it all together in there.
And it does it makes for a much better book.
And because you're drawing from your ownpersonal experiences to this, I know these
(10:34):
books are fantastic.
It's been it's been really fun.
I heard you talking to another writer.
I can't remember her name, but about staringyourself and making yourself laugh when you're
writing.
So I I have a funny story for you.
So, unfortunately, I hope you don't care that Ishare this, but No.
Not at had a had a accident with a bull.
(10:58):
I'm so sorry for that.
When I was outlining the second seven books,when I was a kid in this neighborhood, there
was a bull, and he was behind the fence.
It was a farm, and he was so scary.
So, you know, we would walk over there, andhe'd be behind the fence.
And I know it's not true, but remember theyused to say that if you wore red, that the
(11:19):
bulls wouldn't come after you?
Yeah.
Right.
Oh my gosh.
She's gonna get us.
So I just Oh.
Yeah.
I don't know where that that came from.
So I just outlined I think it's the first one.
They use red when they're bullfighting.
Bullfighting.
Right.
Can see it no matter where you're at.
(11:39):
It's a really bright color.
It makes sense.
Now I have to say, my husband was wearing a redT shirt.
Oh.
And when we went out with a cowboy totranquilize the bull so that we could get the
lasso off of it, get the wire off of its leg,which is what we should have done in the first
place.
Yeah.
My husband had a red shirt on, and I told him,I says, you have got to change that because the
(12:04):
bull's already taking you down in a red shirt.
He is going to recognize that.
And the bull was watching, and he was watchingwhere my husband was going.
And it's like
So maybe
So he went in, and he changed to blue shirt.
And then
Maybe there is something to the red shirt.
Okay.
Maybe.
So I have my my littlest character in thatstory.
(12:25):
Like I said, it's just outlined, but I have herwearing a red bow.
And all the character's like
Yeah.
Oh, nice.
Because the bull starts, you know, noticingthem and and getting you know, started running
to him.
And I I'll never forget this.
I'm just writing this outline, and I freakedmyself out because I put myself back into the
head of myself as a little
Oh, yeah.
(12:45):
I started laughing.
Like, you're literally not in the story.
You are literally writing this story.
Like, it was it was a wonderful moment.
I just started laughing.
That tells you it's a good book right there.
And I just started laughing at myself, but thatkinda goes to the whole idea of Planet Fasa,
which, again, is trying to get kids backoffline while helping parents get them back
(13:06):
into the real world.
Because how many times do you think aboutyourself and your memories as a little kid, and
you have those memories of freaking yourselfout or being really excited or playing at
night.
I mean, that Yeah.
You can't forget that.
That is irreplaceable.
So
Oh, yeah.
Absolutely irreplaceable.
So, yeah, that was a lot of fun.
I just heard you talking about that with thatother author, and I was like, I've done that
(13:29):
before.
Made myself That's funny
I don't write horror stories.
I I Because I started to because I can writehorror stories, but I'm writing it.
And it just it's like, no.
No.
I'm grossing myself out.
I'm freaking myself out.
I am not writing
this Thank you.
Yeah.
Let's go to something else.
Yeah.
Wouldn't be able to either.
(13:49):
My stories are on hold.
Hey.
Firing about cats and
dogs.
Everybody out.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
So I think the other thing that has been was ahuge learning for me.
So there's such a long story to this.
But when I wrote the books initially, there wasthe six of them.
I never finished the seventh.
From our other podcast, you know that I weended up closing the business for a while and
(14:10):
then coming back to it.
So I never loved the books because I wrote themso quickly.
I had to write them with this business plan toget this business out.
When we
closed the course for the business
fall in love with your books.
Yeah.
And it and I didn't know
what I was doing.
You know?
So I'd read them, and I was like, they're okay.
So when I picked this back up again in 2020because I wanted to try this again, and we had
(14:33):
built a website before, and this time we havethe app.
And now I've got, you know, more parentingexperience and more entrepreneurial experience.
So I said to my husband, like, I'm gonna startfirst with the books.
I wanna get the books where I love them.
So I went out and I started doing moreresearch.
And you know what I was doing?
Because I was a technical writer, I was tellingeverything.
(14:54):
Like, Fassa is sad.
You know?
So and so, Ali, feels this way.
And I learned that when you you have to show,don't tell.
And that made such a big difference becausethen I would say, you know, Fossa frowned or,
you know, there were butterflies in hisstomach.
Instead of saying he's nervous, you say thereare butterflies in his stomach, and then the
(15:14):
reader can figure out what that is, which isalso good for your too.
So that was a huge thing for me, and I likethem so much better now because they were just
so worried.
Yeah.
Thank goodness.
Right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So wordy.
So I'm I'm much happy with them.
And then I had always had the seventh bookoutlined, and I had never finished it.
(15:35):
So I finished it, which is great because thecharacter in my seventh book is miss Loki.
Well, she's Loki, but my animal right now, theonly animal who's still alive is her.
Oh.
And I had never finished her book.
So, yeah, she's she's 19.
She's a 19 year old cat.
Awesome.
In the book, she's a puppy.
But I I'm like, you're fine.
(15:56):
She's like her personality.
Yeah.
But it was really wonderful for me to be ableto finish that first seven because at the end,
then it's like being done with a book.
You know?
So it's each of them is like a chapter with allthese activities and things behind it.
And so if you get all seven, you have a wholebook.
So that's That's awesome.
(16:16):
That's a really great way to do that.
And I wonder, without even realizing it untilyou were saying this, my Baxter's Heart series
about what happens to a pet when it dies, howdo the other pets in the home react.
And each one is a continuation of the onebefore, and I didn't realize that they were all
(16:40):
connected like that until you were talkingabout it.
And I was like, oh, that's interesting.
Because, yeah, you know, Max is talking withthe boy about his dog, and he's talking about
his parrots.
And so, of course, the next book is Max'sparrots.
And then the next one we're going to is theclassroom pets because they're at school, and
(17:00):
the teacher brings in the pet.
You know?
So it does continue on like that.
Oh, that's very interesting.
There you go.
Oh, who knew?
That's why I'm
here.
Obsess.
Oh, that's so funny.
Yeah.
It was it's been a wonderful experience.
I'm I have such a good time now because it'slike I said, I sat down.
(17:21):
I I'm not writing the second the second, whatam I saying, volume right now yet because we're
in the middle of getting the app together.
But it was so fun.
And I think it was a week, and it was probablytwo years ago.
I was getting a little nervous.
I'm like, well, when this takes off, I'm gonnahave to write more books.
Right?
What am I gonna do?
What am I gonna do?
And I sat down in a week, and I outlined thenext seven stories.
(17:43):
It just went out of my head.
Isn't that crazy when that happens?
That's that's awesome.
And and I'll I'll give you a little hint onthat because you actually had your first books,
and then you restructured them, and you didyour seventh book just boom like that.
Now you know what to do.
You know what's going on with it.
You know where they want to go.
(18:04):
You've already got the plan in your head.
You just don't realize it, and now you've gotit down on paper.
And wonderful.
I can hardly wait for these to to be completedand and available we can get all of them.
But now you've got your next set coming out.
The next set coming.
Yeah.
Right now, the first the first four are onAmazon.
I haven't released the other three.
(18:25):
They're done, but we're we're like I said, Ikeep saying we're rolling stuff out, but we
really are rolling stuff out.
And I'm hoping with the books and you can takethis as a business idea for you.
I'm trying to figure out how to sell them as aseries.
So excuse me.
As a subscription.
Because I would love kids to get one book thebeginning of each month because that makes you
(18:47):
excited that something's coming.
And the books, I I keep saying, but there's alot of meat in the sandwich.
Like, there's a lot of stuff in here.
We've got you got the story, and then I do andevery story has a valuable life lesson.
So this one is my persistence pays off.
So Fasa wakes up in a at a vet's office.
You don't know he's there.
And he is trying to figure out where he is, andhe uses his five senses to figure out where
(19:08):
he's going.
And at the end, he persists, and he getsadopted.
And so he says, He says my persistence paysoff.
He ends in a happy ending, but then I do twoplot twists where we see him make a choice that
takes him off the path to that happy ending.
And so then what would happen, he wouldn't getadopted.
So we learn in plot twist one.
If at first you don't succeed, try try again.
(19:29):
So the kids do a little activity to get himback on track.
And then plot twist two is mind over matter,and they do another little activity to get him
back on track because they want him to getadopted.
And then we go into five activities after that.
And one of the activities these all reinforcethe lessons and the things that he did in the
story.
So one of the activities is the five sensesscavenger hunt because he used his five So we
(19:52):
send the kids around.
And then all of the activities my favoritepart, I always say this, but all of the
activities have things to talk about.
And so I give prompt talking prompts to thecaregiver.
Like, he just went and did this.
Your son or daughter just went and did this.
Here's things to ask them.
So then you have something to talk to the kidsabout just because I always remember with my
(20:13):
kids, what'd you do today?
Nothing.
You know?
Yes.
How was it?
Fine.
Fine.
Yeah.
And something that LS knows that I haven'tsaid, these books and all the activities are
tied to points.
So if the kids don't wanna do it, you're like,you get 10 points, and then they can cash the
points in on the app.
No.
No.
Yeah.
That's really We have to talk to you.
(20:34):
But, you know, it's okay.
And then I also have the coloring pages inhere.
Another thing and the word searches, hiddenpictures, all sorts of stuff.
But another thing that was important to me whenI started writing these books back in 02/2008,
2009 when I started researching and this is notthe same now because I know your books aren't
like this, but I'm really trying to get kidsnot to have their faces in technology all the
(20:58):
time.
And the books that were available online forkids were so ugh.
I don't I don't have a nice word for it.
They were five words and then a picture in fivewords, a picture in five words.
And they were, like, three ninety nine.
And I was like, they are dumbing down ourchildren.
Like, they weren't and I know there's a lot ofgood handheld children's books.
(21:21):
And I'm sure there's other ones too.
But at that moment, at that time, what I waslooking at were really just not intellectually
stimulating at all.
So what I is I have lots of words, and I haveimages, but, like, a lot of words with each
image because I want the kids to imagine more,not to see everything happening.
(21:42):
That's kind of my big thing.
And I use big words because in the back of thebook, there's a word quiz, and I I say to the
kids, yeah.
On page two, you saw this word, and I give thema context clues.
Like, here you know, I say what it said in thebook, and you can go back and look and then try
to figure out what it means.
This is perfect
for people that are schooling their children athome.
(22:03):
I think so.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And and then those those words are in a wordsearch because then they're currently learning.
And then I have two other words forcing.
Yeah.
And there I have two other words which isavailable on my website and my coloring pages
too.
Because I figured if you have one kid and youget one book and one of them colors the pages,
I better have a place for you to coloringpages.
(22:24):
It says
That's right.
There you
My website is like, ugh.
I don't wanna get into that.
So there that's what I was saying.
There's a lot of stuff behind each of thesebooks because it's adventure with your
imagination, and then the plot twists and thethe activities reinforce the lessons.
They reinforce the imagination.
You're moving and playing, and then the parentsget to talk to them about it.
(22:45):
And I just really wanted a lot of stuff in thisbook, especially compared to those things I was
seeing on online on, you know, o nine.
I was really because our kids is are just assmart as we were.
You know what I mean?
We're just challenging them.
They're smarter than
I mean, look.
We never I didn't have computers available whenI was going to school.
(23:05):
They just didn't exist for the public.
You know?
And now my grandkids, you know, they're so farahead of me and everything.
Well, I mean what I mean by this is, though,they have the computers, and we want them to
learn those, but we're not challenging them offthe computers.
And I
and we're
like, oh, kids don't do this these these theythey don't do this these days.
(23:27):
Yes.
They do.
We're just not having them do it.
They can do everything we did.
Yeah.
They are just as imaginative.
We're just putting these screens in theirfaces.
So we're trying to give them more of, like, ascreen light childhood.
That's kinda what I'm going for.
And to me, if your daughter, you know, did thisbook with read this book with your kid on
Friday, and your kids come her your grandkidscome over, she can hand it to you.
(23:49):
You can do two of the activities with them.
And when they go home, they
can talk
you know, that's it was just trying to figureout a way to give a lot of offline activities
for people to do.
And I'm gonna plug one more thing because Ithink you'll find this hilarious.
I did realize that this was a lot.
And let's say the grandkids come to your house,and you're like, I want a little break because
parents and grandparents need breaks fromchildren.
(24:11):
But to me right now, what happens is the kidsare like, oh, I'm used to being online.
And so we get tired.
And we talked about this before, and so we'relike, fine.
Here's my tablet.
You don't wanna do that.
But sometimes if they can't come up withanything, that's what happens.
So what I did is for each activity in my book,I'm on YouTube, and I actually walk the kids
through the activity.
(24:32):
And then I say yeah.
And then
I say, okay.
And I put timers up.
I'm like, you have to go do this for ten,twenty minutes.
So I instead of just me sitting there doing it,put a timer up.
And my idea was parents can give their kids atablet or a laptop.
They'll see me.
I'll direct them what to do, and then they gooff and play.
And I'm hoping when they're off playing anddoing the scavenger hunt and everything, they
(24:53):
won't come back for a long time.
That's the whole thing.
So I'm showing them, like, you can usetechnology to find things to go and then have
fun off of technology.
Oh, absolutely.
And then I also on there as well is I read thebooks to the kids.
But Oh, good.
I'm not on there because I I didn't want themlooking at me.
I wanted them looking at the words.
(25:13):
But I do the reason I thought you'd appreciatethis, I do all the characters' voices and all
their meowing and barking and ugh.
So I really had to get to know my charactersthat way too because it's it was hard.
It's perfect.
Okay.
So you have to tell us I know we're we'rerunning short on time.
You
have to tell us how to find your website, howto find the app, and where to find the books.
(25:35):
Oh, yes.
Okay.
So all of those things are at sscoulter.com.
So it's s Shannon, s Sue, and then Coulter isc0ulter,.com.
If you go out there, all of my books arelisted.
There are a place to find coloring pages andword searches and all that stuff.
Excuse me.
And then the app, it we're in the midst ofdeveloping it right now, but we should have it
(25:59):
up and ready for testing in the next twomonths.
If you wanna go out there and be part of thattesting, please do.
It's gonna be free at that point because Iwanna know what is the easiest way that I can
help you inspire your kids to play.
So that's that's we're really looking forfeedback so we can get a whole group of people
doing this together because it's gonna take allof us kind of locking arms to change this.
(26:22):
Yes.
But, yeah, everything's at s@culture.com.
That's wonderful.
Thank you so much, Shannon, for being here andand being my guest.
I really appreciate all that you're doing.
That is just so phenomenal.
This is way more than just a book, so to speak.
You know, books usually are, but but you offerso much more.
(26:45):
You you include the whole family, and you makeit a total experience, which is just fantastic.
So go to sscoulter.com, and thank you so muchfor being here.
There
you go.
Our audience.
Go out and get those books.
Check out the website.
You know, be a part of the beta testing for theapp and and see how that's going.
(27:10):
And, thank you for being here.
Thank you for showing us your books, and we'llsee you next time on reading between the words.
I hope today's conversation on reading betweenthe words gave you a glimpse into the heart
behind the book and spark something new foryour life or business.
If you love this episode, join theconversation, share it with a friend, leave a
review, or reach out and let us know what spoketo you.
(27:31):
We appreciate your support of this podcast, andremember, your words have power too.
Go to lskirkpatrick.com/podcast.
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