Marion Passey was raised in the mountains of California, where everyone lived in a log cabin (and without doubt still do). She attended a one-room country school and was taught by her mother. She remembers writing poems during her early years while sitting on the trunk of a felled tree near her home.
Later, she attended a three teacher, three building high school before moving to San Bernadino, CA. She graduated from Redlands University with teaching credentials and completed additional studies at Brigham Young University.
When her four children were small, she entered and won numerous contests including contests for last lines, twenty-five word statements, slogans, etc. The sponsors awarded her three cars, a trip to Hawai'i, bicycles, watches, vacuums, even a clothes dryer tha …
Author sees her work as a journey
Persistence pays off: The writer of children's books weathered rejection before getting her titles published
By Dana Rimington
Close-Up Correspondent
Writing children's books has always been Marion Passey's dream, but one she was not able to fulfill until she had raised her children and retired from a demanding career.
Now, the Kaysville writer's dream has become a reality with the publication of five children's books and another due out this summer. The first four are a series of tiny books published by Deseret Book, titled: My Tiny Book of Prayer, My Tiny Book of Tithing, My Tiny Book of Family and My Tiny Book of Joseph Smith. Another book, Sneezles and Wheezles, printed by Cedar Fort Books, came out this year.
Even though Passey is excited about the books she's written, she still has three binders full of stories yet to hit the shelves at bookstores.
"Hopefully I can get them all published before I expire," Passey said.
Nearly 7,000 of her tiny books sold during the final six months of 2005. Her first five books were only distributed locally, but her next book, My Tiny Book of Christmas, published by Idaho-based Wind River, is due out later this summer and will be distributed nationally.
Writing comes easy for Passey because her ideas and words just flow. So she keeps a yellow pad of paper handy at all times. In fact, she buys yellow pads in bulk. Other times, she'll sit down and think of something funny and start expanding on the idea.
"I always keep my thesaurus nearby," she says.
Passey is thrilled to see her stories published.
"I have a lot of fun with it," she says. "My philosophy is you do everything you can with what you have left."
One of the things she is known for is telling people to develop their talents.
"Sometimes people will say they wish they had the same talent as me, but I just tell them that everybody has talents and that God didn't short anybody," Passey says.
Certainly, he didn't short Passey, who has put pen to paper so long that she can't remember when she started - only that she grew up loving books and writing short poems. She was raised in a small California town, where her mother taught all eight grades at the local school and the book collection at the library was slim.
"I read all of the books in the library, which wasn't very many, and then resorted to reading the encyclopedias," Passey says.
Passey has always loved books, which she says are much more important than television. Books, she adds, are a great form of entertainment because people can read the book themselves or have somebody read it to them.
"Reading books together as a family is a lot cheaper than a movie," she says.
Writing the story is only one part of a book. Passey says an illustrator brings the story to life with pictures.
"My illustrator, Jerry Harston, and I work as a team," she says. "He just takes my story and gets right into it."
Passey never sees the illustrations until the book goes into print, but she has been thrilled with the pictures thus far.
A humble, quiet woman, Passey insists anyone can accomplish their goals if they keep trying.
"I've been rejected before when submitting my ideas for publication, but so what," she says.
Passey kept trying until she found somebody who liked her work. And while she now is a published author, she still labors to accomplish everything she has set out to do.
"It's an ongoing thing, a journey really."
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