News Photo by Alyssa Ochss An array of Richard’s and Mary’s books are seen spread out on a table at Cabin Creek Coffee last week.

ALPENA — For Richard and Mary Rensberry, Michigan provides the perfect backdrop for them to tell stories that help children and adults with daily life and other subjects.

“It’s born in us,” Mary Rensberry said when asked about what got them both into writing.

Richard grew up in Alpena, but now resides in Fairview. With his wife, Mary, they’ve written many children and adult books with a lot of them having to do with northern Michigan.

Richard authored a book called ‘The City Slicker’s Guide to Amish Country’ which is a collection of poems and stories from Fairview. It’s a travel book that goes right into the Michigan countryside and tells of the hardworking Amish people who live there.

Richard said he’s always had a passion for writing, but meeting his wife pushed him to take it a bit more seriously. Mary is a writer and is originally from Texas. She originally started off as a teacher and her experiences prompted her to ask what students need.

Courtesy Photo The cover of ‘Conversations with Sasquatch’ Book 2 written by Richard Rensberry.

“I was teaching school in Texas for many years in all kinds of school situations, public, private church, homeschool, alternative education,” Mary said. “And began to really open my eyes to really what did the students need, what did they need, what were they coming with and how could I meet their needs? And you know that started me on a journey learning about what is education and so forth.”

After Mary was done teaching, she thought she would put some of the things she learned down in writing to help people and students.

At first Richard did mostly children’s books, but now he has a big series of adult books. The series, Conversations with Sasquatch, has several books in it with more on the way. One book comes out in April and he’s got two more books partially done.

Richard’s first book was a book called ‘It’s Black and White’ and it took him about three months to publish it. The book is about ADHD and its challenges. He said he used to work in the field of drug education and he was very familiar with the subject he was writing about.

Mary said they write a lot of self help books and imaginative books.

Courtesy Photo The cover of ‘If I were a Lighthouse’ written by Richard Rensberry and illustrated by Mary Rensberry.

Richard said Mary does a lot of the illustrations in the books, but sometimes they have outside help. A book they did for The Brown Trout Festival was illustrated by Michael Payton.

“So sometimes I hire out, it depends on the subject matter,” Richard said, showing off The Brown Trout Festival book. “He’s good at nature and fish. And Mary hired one out too.”

Richard said long distance communications are part of the wonders of the internet.

They brought out another fully illustrated children’s book and put it on the table. Mary talked a little bit about it.

“This is ‘The Best of Me’ and it won a TCK award back in 2017 in the children’s division,” Mary said. “The lady that did my illustrations there was from Italy.”

Courtesy Photo The cover of ‘Maple Tree Elves’ written by Richard Rensberry and illustrated by Mary Rensberry.

Mary said the book was well received by the children who read it. Their communications for that book were all done by email and very little revision was needed for the illustrations.

Mary said part of what inspires them to keep writing is the want to help people out and offer a viewpoint.

“Just to provide some help out there,” Mary said. “There are so many people that need help and solutions and we’re just there to offer a viewpoint. That we’re able to just help people and inspire people and likewise.”

Richard said it took them about seven years to put their name out there and their newest book series, Conversations with Sasquatch, really helped them.

“And we’ve really got to hit the audience’s interest,” Mary said. “And the sasquatch really got their interest and we’ve taken off with sasquatch.”

Courtesy Photo The cover of ‘The Wolf Pack Moon’ written in January and February 2015.

Richard said some of the books he writes are sponsored and for specific events.

“Well this was for Alpena, right, The Brown Trout Festival,” Richard said. “It’s charity for them but people in the city here sponsored the book. It was the Alpena Alcona (Area) Credit Union (that) sponsored the book and then I wrote it and got it illustrated and everything and it was given away at The Brown Trout Festival to all the kids. So there were 400 and some kids.”

“And he signed every book they brought through,” Mary said. “All the kids have a book.”

“And I’m doing another one this year,” Richard said. “The illustrations are done, they just need to be shipped to me.”

Richard said the artist who does the illustrations for The Brown Trout Festival books, the first one called ‘Big Brownie,’ sends paintings rather than sends them over the internet.

News Photo by Alyssa Ochss Authors Mary and Richard Rensberry are seen at Cabin Creek Coffee last week.

Richard said he works on multiple books at the same time. Right now he is working on two books at the same time, but sometimes he’s working on three. He keeps them all together with his IPad.

They are also the owners of a publishing company called Quick Turtle Books. They started their business in 2013 and Mary said from there they spent most of their winters writing and in spring and fall they did quick events. They took their books with them.

Richard said he doesn’t experience burnout and Mary said he really takes advantage of the nighttime hours to write. Writing on their own time and getting out in nature helps too, Mary said.

Richard and Mary have a simple piece of advice for young authors looking to get published: Just go for it.

“There’s just too many agendas out there from traditional publishing and big corporations that don’t take writers that deserve to be published and all that,” Richard said. “Just do it and you’d be surprised.”