ATPE member April Coker is a retired English and science teacher and the author of four books and counting. Her three-part series, The Keeper, was inspired by her late husband Jimmy’s career as a zookeeper. April is president of the East Texas Writers Guild and an active member of her church and the East Texas Writers Association.

ATPE sat down with April to talk about her books, the publishing process, and what’s next in her journey as an author. 

Tell us about your book series.

The first one is called The Keeper because it's based on my husband's career as a zookeeper, who worked at night. The story is fiction, but it's based on what keepers actually do in their jobs, and I added characters loosely based on real people. I followed that one with Keeper II: The Storm, which uses roughly the same characters. The story progresses, and as you can probably guess, there is a storm involved. The final novel in the trilogy is Keeper 3: Blackout. And this one, of course, involves a power outage. My novels contain elements of romance, suspense, murder mystery, and intrigue, but they all have a Christian theme running throughout them.

I also published a children's book where I used the little girl from the novels and her pet hedgehog to create an alphabet book at the zoo. I wanted a children's book to go with the other three because I love children, and I would like to be able to get these into zoo gift shops. 

Who inspired you to write these books?

My late husband Jimmy was my writing consultant for the zookeeper series. If I wanted to talk about an animal or a zookeeper’s routine, I would go to him. All of the information in the books is authentic to what he did. I also worked at the same zoo for a time—the Caldwell Zoo in Tyler—in college, so I knew some of the workings. But I worked in the education department, so I asked Jimmy for details on the animals and the facilities to use in my books. But he's no longer here. So now that my consultant is gone, I won't be writing any more zookeeper books. 

What is your writing process like? 

I get an idea and I just kind of sit down and start writing, and there's a name for that. It's called “writing by the seat of your pants.” Some writers have an actual process, and they'll do outlines and plan everything in their books. But I don't do that necessarily. I just sit down and start writing. I try to devote an hour or so a day to it—sometimes less, sometimes more. You have to be disciplined to be successful, and that's difficult.

I think with writing, all of your life experience goes into it. Some of the best writing is done by older people who have seen and done more in their lives. I may be wrong about that, but my experiences and the people I have known helped add a lot of depth to my characters. 

Can you tell us about your experience getting published?

As soon as my kids were older—I think my son had already started college—I wrote a little book about saving money at Christmas. I believe it is still listed on Amazon, but the publisher ran away with my rights. It was a vanity publisher, and I didn't know any better at the time. They closed their business and offered their authors the opportunity to buy their book rights, but at the time, I was unable to do that. So I had to just let them take my rights, and I'm not able to sell that book anymore. It's called I'm Dreaming of a Black Christmas: A Holiday Survival Guide. It was a tongue-in-cheek book about saving money at Christmas that I sat down and wrote just after a Christmas season that almost drove me nuts.

My first novel was actually titled Night Keeper, which is basically the same story as The Keeper, just not Christian-based. It was also published by that same publisher, so I lost those rights as well. When I joined the East Texas Writers Guild, I asked one of the members about how I could still write sequels to that book. He advised me to change the title, some of the scenes, all the characters’ names and then publish it under a different title. He also led me toward self-publishing through Amazon’s website where you can upload your books. Of course, you have to find your own illustrator or book cover designer.

Although I do like the idea of going with a traditional publishing company because they buy your book and help you market it, the turnover is so slow. First of all, you have to find someone by sending out queries and book samples to different publishers and then wait months and months to get a response. And even if they do publish your book, it takes a year or more to actually see it in print. Also, some of the publishers require you to lead your own marketing campaigns. If you're going to do all that, then you might as well just publish yourself. It's a lot quicker to self-publish, and even though you still need a professional editor and illustrator/designer, there are a lot of books out there that don't have all of that. 

Do you have advice for other educators who would like to get published?

For a teacher or an educator who wants to write, I would say to carve out time—even if it's only 15 to 30 minutes a day. I wish I had done that. I know you're exhausted at the end of the day, so it might be a good idea to start your day like that. That's something I struggled with my entire career, but I think one thing I've learned is that if you want to make it happen, you have to designate time away from your family and your job to make it happen. Also, I would strongly suggest that anyone who is serious about writing join a local writer’s group because it can be a wonderful resource. 

How long have you been a member of ATPE?

I didn't know about ATPE until I started teaching in Mesquite around 2006. I had always been a part of another organization. So I was kind of both shocked and thrilled when I found out about ATPE. The ladies who befriended me as I first started teaching were already very active. I am now a retired member, and I still support what ATPE does for teachers. I think it's a wonderful organization. 

Do you have any other writing projects in the works?

I have started writing a cozy mystery whose main character is a glamper—like me. Outside of that, I would also like to do another children's book using the same little girl in a seasonal story, such as Halloween or Christmas. I'll just have to see where it takes me. I am also interested in branching out into young adult novels, but I still have a lot of research to do before putting that together. 

Fun facts about April:

• She has a little vintage camper that she enjoys “glamping” (camping enhanced by amenities) in.
• She was also one of Miranda Lambert's high school teachers in Lindale. In 2009, Miranda chose April and another teacher to be a part of a photo shoot in Nashville called Behind Every Famous Person is a Fabulous Teacher. April was also invited to Miranda and Blake Shelton’s engagement party. What an incredible experience!

Thank you for visiting with us, April, and we look forward to your next book!

You can find Coker’s books on Amazon.com and her website, aprilnunncoker.com.