From Daytime Emmys to Oktoberfest: Local Author Reaches the Finish Line

Kathryn Cloward’s latest marathon is over.  Her second children’s book—Kathryn the Grape’s Colorful Adventure—is being published today (Wednesday).

Cloward—whose son, Landon, attends Grey Rabbit Preschool in La Mesa—released her first book (Kathryn the Grape—Just Like Magic) 10 months and 10 days ago, she says.

“The exhaustion I feel is similar to what it feels like to complete a marathon,” Cloward said.  “I will never forget the feeling of complete accomplishment when I ran across the finish line of my first marathon.”

In this case, the race included a detour to the the 38th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards.

Over the summer, she was invited to provide schwag—copies of her first book—to 1,400 people involved in the Daytime Emmys event June 19 in Las Vegas.

Cloward wrote on her blog:

While the Daytime Emmy Awards honor soap operas and game shows, a large majority of the awards are given out to children’s programming and talk shows.  As the publisher of a newly released children’s book, there couldn’t be a more appropriate audience to go home with a Kathryn the Grape book than 1,400 of the who’s who in daytime television and their guests.

To get Kathryn the Grape—Just Like Magic ready for the 1,400 gift bags, we quickly ordered up some of our signature marketing materials of coloring pages and stickers. 

Cloward, 37, said her book illustrator, Christine Winscott, also designed a  postcard flier to insert in each book.  And the next weekend, co-author Ginny Hornby and Winscott flew from Chicago for 40 hours of “what felt like a nonstop work weekend,” Cloward said.

Tara Harre, the costumed character, Hornby, Winscott, marketing coordinator Samantha Prince and Cloward hung out in her garage, signing and stuffing almost 1,600 books, she said.

More recently, Cloward launched a radio show, The Ripple Effect, on a Web-based talk radio site called VoiceAmerica Variety.

Cloward—who lives in San Carlos near Lake Murray—says she’ll be doing a book signing at Readers Inc. in The Village during Oktoberfest weekend starting Sept. 30—5 to 7 p.m. Friday and 10 a.m. to noon Saturday.

She also plans to visit local schools and speak at assemblies about the inspirational messages of Kathryn the Grape and also talk about the process of writing and publishing a book.

“I can’t teach children what it feels like to trust their intuition if I am not living that reality and know the doubt that sneaks in when you don’t want to believe what your intuition is telling you to be true sometimes,” Cloward said.

“And I certainly couldn’t teach children what it feels like to belong, until I dug in deep and did the hard self-work and self-examination of my life to trigger the hurtful times when I felt left out and misunderstood.”

Cloward says she heard Wayne Dyer speak a few years ago at conference, “and he talked about motivation and purpose and he said that when you are motivated by inspiration, by purpose, an idea gets a hold of you and takes you where you are meant to go. That is so true.”

Now that the publishing marathon has ended, the marketing marathon resumes.

But she says she’ll take a break.

“While I have been running a purposeful and fulfilling race,” she said,  “I am going to take some time to rest and be thankful for what has manifested thus far, and be thankful for the amazing team of people who are on this journey with me. 

“What does a rest mean for me?  Probably just turning off all contact for an entire weekend to recharge my battery. That should suffice.”