Writing a book was never on Heather Chastain’s list of goals. But that doesn’t mean she never did it —the Ball State alumna just published her first children’s book, “Caroline Girls.”
Chastain took a long road to becoming an author, but not to being a storyteller. At Ball State, she was a telecommunications student and completed an immersive learning project working in a newsroom.
“My senior year, I decided I wanted to be a news producer,” Chastain said. “I was so excited to travel. I love journalism — interviewing, talking to people. Telling people what’s going on in their world is super important to me.”
She worked as a news producer after college, first in South Bend and later in Indianapolis. However, the late-night schedule was hard on her, and when her contract ended, she and her husband decided she wouldn’t go back.
“I still had a desire to tell stories,” Chastain said. “I started writing short novels. I even went to some conferences and worked with some publishers, but I never thought it was the right project or the right time.”
That all changed when Chastain began watching her daughter, Caroline, grow up. When Caroline was 2 and a half years old, Chastain began writing stories based on her daughter’s personality and antics.
“I didn’t do anything with the stories until about a year and a half ago,” Chastain said. “But then one day my husband said, ‘This is what you should do,’ and I thought, ‘Yeah, this is what I should do.’”
The title was also inspired by her daughter. One day, while wearing a dress with girls on the skirt, Caroline said, “Look Mommy, they’re Caroline Girls.”
Chastain is self-publishing, which she describes as interesting. First, she had to find an illustrator. She “looked high and low” for someone to work with.
Eventually, after spreading the word on social media, she found an agent who connected her with several illustrators who could help.
“I immediately honed in on Marilena Perilli,” Chastain said. “It’s been a dream working with her. She’s so open, so easy.”
Perilli created Chastain’s colorful, whimsical and pink world from a storyboard she created. She also made sure the little girl in the book, Caroline, resembled the real Caroline at 2 years old, which was very important to Chastain.
The next challenge Chastain faced was finding a printer. Because she wrote a picture book, she was unable to use a program such as CreateSpace, which prints books as they are ordered.
“Most printers say you have to print at least 1,000 copies,” Chastain said. “That made me really nervous. Could I sell all those?”
She finally found a company willing to only print 500, but the price didn’t make sense, so she ended up printing 1,000 copies anyway with Signature Book Printing.
“Caroline Girls” is now on sale on Amazon.com and some stores in Fort Wayne. Chastain also recently submitted the book to Barnes and Noble.
Chastain attributes some of her success to her time at Ball State.
“Once you hit your senior year, professors start giving you more than just technical advice,” she said. “Those building blocks have stuck with me my whole life.”
Originally, Chastain wrote four to five stories. While she would like to publish the others in the future, she is waiting to see how her first one goes. She hopes she can influence children in a positive way, even if she only ever publishes this one book.
“I really wanted to target children and teach them to be loving and kind and inclusive,” Chastain said. “Caroline Girls have a heart of gold. Society has become mean in a way that’s just not OK, and I wanted to teach [children] to be kind and still have a heart of gold.”
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