Eric Fisher

I was raised in the beautiful Pennsylvania Dutch Country of southeastern PA. Lancaster County, to be specific. The town of Paradise to be more specific. And, don’t even get me started on Intercourse, Blue Ball, Lititz, and Bareville. Ah, Pennsylvania! My father was raised Amish but left the church before his 20th birthday. However, my brother and I were raised in the area and enjoyed frequent interaction with the Amish community and our 300-plus Amish relatives! Fast-forward ten years and my wife and I found ourselves raising a family in another small, rural community. But this time we were 7000 miles west of Lancaster county and smack-dab in the middle of the wide, blue Pacific. Our family lived in the island community of Laura, a rural village on Majuro, the capital of the Republic of the Marshall Islands. Our oldest child was 6 months old when we arrived. Three more children were born and raised there. The Marshallese were a welcoming community and extremely patient with us as we learned their language and culture. We were actively involved in church and social work for close to 24 years. Interacting with our community we heard many fascinating stories that described the magical history of our island home. Most of these stories focused on plants and animals vital to the early islanders’ existence, and inventions, such as the outrigger sailing canoe, which expanded their fishing capabilities and allowed them to connect with other island communities. We are presently living in the college town of Clemson, SC. Six years ago I got plugged into the wonderful world of substitute teaching. And, strangely, I love middle school students the best! They are young enough to enjoy a goofy joke (let’s be honest, a bad one!), yet old enough to engage in meaningful conversations about life. To connect with students in the classroom, I drew illustrations on the whiteboard and told one of the island legends that we had heard in the Marshalls. Soon students and family encouraged me to reproduce these stories in book form. Jebro and the Canoe Race is the first, and perhaps the most popular story that I heard. And, it is my first children’s picture book. I both write and illustrate my children’s books. Reading and drawing are pure delights! That is, as a distant second and third to my wife. A good book in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other is my idea of a fine afternoon. And sketching on paper the wild ideas that found birth in my mind is sheer pleasure! I cut my artistic teeth on comic books and love the quirky artistic styles of The Peanuts, Farside, Calvin and Hobbs, and my hands-down favorite comic book artist, Jack Kirby. Many of the island stories are just plain fun. And I hope that my artwork will add dimension and attract new generations and cultures to these wonderful tales from the Pacific. Oh, and I plan to do Marshallese versions of each of these books which, hopefully, will help keep these stories alive for the people who thought them up in the first place.