'Magical side to writing': Louisville park naturalist publishes first fantasy book for kids

LOUISVILLE — He spent his childhood collecting shells, rocks and interacting with every aspect of nature. Now local park naturalist and writer Alan Goldstein is putting his love of nature into his debut fantasy novel for children.

Goldstein has written more than 140 articles and periodicals during a more than 40-year career, about everything from astronomy and rocks to minerals and more. Now he's getting ready to dive into the world of fantasy novels. "The Dragon in my Backyard," will be published this year by Dingbat Publishing.

"I certainly use my background to make the story more realistic in terms of what kids do when they're just playing around in the woods, hiking and stuff like that," Goldstein, a naturalist at the Falls of Ohio State Park, told The Courier Journal.

"The Dragon in My Backyard," is a story about 11-year-old Josh Draconette, a child of a wealthy family who is often ignored for the sake of business. A nature lover, he spends his free time exploring his family's estate with his friends. When his father starts building a warehouse next to his favorite place, he cries on an ancient jade dragon sculpture (a birthday gift from his parents) and awakens the stone.

He joins together with the dragon stone to try to stop his dad's plans, but things don't go according to plan. According to the book description, "Josh couldn’t believe that any cost would be too high to save his favorite place. But now something terrible has happened. ... Can the magic of a dragon’s heart save him and his family, or will this be the end of everything Josh loves?"

Even though he has been writing for many years, it wasn't until a family trip in 2007 to Hawaii that Goldstein ventured outside of writing for professional magazines. Goldstein went to writing groups to connect with fellow writers and a fellow writer told him about Dingbat Publishing, which specializes in "quality entertainment that doesn’t take itself too seriously." 

He sent a manuscript of his first novel, "Earth's Heart," and Dingbat decided to publish Goldstein's debut novel, "The Dragon in My Backyard."

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Goldstein has been a naturalist at the Falls of Ohio State Park since 1993 and his years of experience in professional communication helped him when he decided to venture into books, something he says is easier than in-person communication.

"When you're going to someone verbally, it's very situational. Whereas written word, you can sit down and actually think about what you want to do," Goldstein said.

Bett Etenohan worked with Goldstein at the Falls of Ohio State Park until her retirement in 2011. She's stayed in touch with the naturalist author since then and said she "learned so much from him."

"I love the falls, I loved the job and working with him, there was always something going on," Etenohan said. "He had his special events, I had my special events and together, we just really made it a place that was exciting with something happening all the time. He was is a big part of that." 

Entenohan said even before Goldstein got into fantasy writing, his work in hobbyist and career-related magazines-periodicals including "Astronomy," "Rocks & Minerals," "Legacy," and "The Mineralogical Records," was always interesting.

"He's been writing for quite a while, but they were always interesting," she said. "There was a magical side to his writing."

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Fellow writer Erv Klein met Goldstein in a local writers group and is excited about Goldstein's first fantasy novel.

"...I know he's been working on it for a good while. And he's been bringing excerpts from it to our writer's group. I've read it but out of order and I'm anxious to get a copy of it and see how it all turned out," Klein said.

Klein said Goldstein's writings are engaging yet challenging for young adults.

"I know there have been one of two times when I've said 'Alan isn't this word a little bit advanced for the young adult group?' And he said, 'No, I'm trying to challenge them. I want them to occasionally run across a word that they're not totally familiar with,'" Klein said.

Goldstein's next project is finishing the "Earth's Heart" series, a fantasy adventure novel about Ryan Levy, who lives in the beautiful Colorado mountains but is constantly bullied at school. His escape leads him to a cave that holds a dragon egg and when it hatches, a mysterious portal opens in the cave and Orion comes through. Ryan embarks on a mysterious journey, where he and dragon Tourmaline must fight for survival on Orion’s home planet, called Thear, where computers and phones don’t exist as they learn to live in a world that resembles Earth but is as distant as another universe.

It will also be published by Dingbat Publishing.

With over a hundred pieces of published work, Goldstein says writing is about more than just getting paid.

"For me, I'm not writing to make money because I enjoy writing and I enjoy telling stories," he said. "I hope that other people enjoy the stories that I write."

Reach Features Intern Gabby Bunton at gbunton@courier-journal.com

'The Dragon in my Backyard'

You can purchase "The Dragon in My Backyard," by Alan Goldstein at Amazon.com. For more information on his works, visit dingbatpublishing.ninja/authors/alan-goldstein.