If you or someone you know has been to couples or family therapy, there’s a good chance you’re one of the millions of people impacted by the work of Dr. Sue Johnson.

Dr. Johnson is a renowned clinical psychologist, educator, and New York Times bestselling author. She is a pioneer of Emotionally Focused Therapy, a therapeutic practice that has been found effective in treating relationship distress and promoting secure attachment bonds. For her groundbreaking work, Dr. Johnson has received numerous awards including the Order of Canada.

Dr. Johnson recently added “children’s author” to her storied resume with the release of Edgar and Elouise, published with FriesenPress. The novel (neatly split into two sagas) follows two best friends — a crow and a fox — and their adventures together in the West Coast oasis “Beacon Wood.” While a departure from her academic and therapeutic work on the surface, Edgar and Elouise reveals life lessons about love, friendship, and dealing with emotions to children and adults alike — all brought to life through beautiful watercolour illustrations. Through the lens of charming talking animals, Dr. Johnson encourages readers of all ages to attune to one another, overcome fear, and find strength in themselves.

But when it came time for this multimillion-selling author to tell this story, Dr. Johnson immediately knew what she had to do: go independent and self-publish, lest she be forced to compromise the heart and soul of her project:

“My first thought was, ‘Well, I can’t publish it [traditionally], because it doesn’t fit into any of the nice, neat, little boxes that publishers want.’ And I was right about this.”

We spoke with Dr. Johnson to learn more about the meaningful bond she formed with this special project, her empowering decision to self-publish, and the unexpected power of saying “no” when it comes to protecting a story that you’re passionate about:

Is it true that Edgar and Elouise was inspired by playtime with your granddaughter? Can you speak about the origins of this book?

The beginnings of this book came from before COVID. My granddaughter would come over on a Monday afternoon and I would homeschool her — which really meant that we had incredible fun and just played. 

I’d bought these two beautiful, beautiful big puppets at a Christmas craft fair — a crow and a fox. We started playing, with the crow saying something and the fox saying something [in response]. And it’s like this conversation started. I bought some more puppets, and eventually we added more characters — like Spike, the porcupine (who my granddaughter named).

But then COVID hit, and we couldn’t play together anymore. So, I started writing out some of the little conversations for her, and scenes that we already had. To be honest, this was the first time I’ve written fiction… Then something happened.

It’s quite mysterious to me. I don’t know what it was, but I would wake up in the morning with all these conversations in my head between Edgar (a depressed crow, who feels terrible about himself), Elouise (the arrogant fox), and Spike (who’s a kind of a therapist porcupine). And somehow the whole thing just took over, and I loved it. I’d just invent a situation and write it out. It just started to grow and change. Spike started to use formal Latin names for animals. (This perhaps reflects the fact that I had to learn Latin as a child.) And the fox started to sound like some of the very, very arrogant English teachers that I had as a child.

I don’t know who wrote it. Somebody wrote it, and I just had a ball [being the stenographer]. Writing professional books, you get hung up on [your writing]. If you’ve put a week’s work into [a chapter], you want to hang onto it for the next eight years. [Edgar and Elouise] evolved and it was totally pleasing to me, so I started to show it to my family and friends, and they started to say, “Is this for children?” I said, “Well, you can read it on that level.” As the front cover says, it’s for nine- to ninety-year-olds. You can read it at different levels.

Did you begin writing this book intending to make it universal to readers of any age? When did that desire come into focus for you?

The universal elements just sort of emerged organically from the conversations [with my granddaughter], and were informed by my professional work.

Edgar started by saying, “I’m a silly, silly, stupid crow.” (Is that because the puppet looked a bit depressed?) Elouise is Edgar’s best friend, but is also very critical of him and he believes her negative view of who he is, until he learns differently. They depend on each other, and define each other, as we all do in our closest relationships.

The conversations started and then I realized, “Oh, this is a universal conversation.” This is how we all have to decide — and we decide in our social environment — who we are. How do you decide who you are? How do you define who you are? That’s a pretty huge issue, and people come into therapy because they don’t like who they are, or they can’t even put their finger on who they are, or they’re in chaos.

In the second saga, Spike, the wise porcupine has something called “the Hum” that allows him to tune into everything, and then everything tunes into him. And that also comes from the therapy we do. When I teach therapists, I say, “You can’t have all these theories in your head. That gets in the way. You have to be open, and tune in to the person in front of you. You have to let yourself vibrate with their reality, and the emotional music they’re playing. And then, you can meet them, and you can start to dance together.” This is me teaching therapy — but then suddenly we’ve got Spike doing this Hum thing and helping the other animals deal with their fear and see things in a different way. In a way, he’s a therapist.

Those two themes — defining yourself and learning to deal with emotions, especially fear, and resonate with other people — are big in my life, and in everybody’s life. They’re big in my practice with people and when I teach. They were kind of just sitting there, but really the conversations came first. And I think that’s significant. The drama. The animals started to talk, and then I went, “Oh, right. We’re talking about these universal things that everyone struggles with.” It’s more fun to talk about as a conversation between a porcupine and a crow.

You mention your family was a direct inspiration for this book. Has your granddaughter seen the book? What does she think?

Oh, yes. The most wonderful thing was I got a hard copy of the book the other day, and it looks really good. I took it over to my granddaughter, and she beamed. There’s actually an illustration of her in the book with one of the animals, and she has the original up on a wall in her house. She was overjoyed to see the book.

Let’s talk about the beautiful illustrations in Edgar and Elouise. How did you connect with Peter Loebel, your illustrator on this project?

It was just chance, and I was delighted. My friend, who also looked at the book early and edited a bit for me, said, “Oh, I know this guy. Maybe you’d like to look at his stuff.” And she showed his work to me and I said, "They’re perfect!!” Then the whole thing just came together — which is why I’m saying there’s something about this book that’s mysterious. I don’t know where it came from. Just like our attunement to each other is mysterious in the end, the feeling we get in nature when we go out and we suddenly feel part of it, it’s mysterious. We’re taken to some place we don’t usually hang out.

This book was like that for me. I’d be typing and I’d go, “Who wrote that? Where did that come from?” I think this is common for people who write fiction. It’s not so common for someone who’s spent their life writing academic books, or books that teach people how to have good relationships.

Had you ever worked with an illustrator in your writing career previous to working with Peter? What was that experience like?

No, and it was actually quite difficult. [Laughs] Peter was very patient — I probably drove him crazy because I’m not used to working with illustrators. He would do these beautiful line drawings, and I’d say, "Oh, it's totally beautiful, but…”

But he got some of them right from the beginning. Because Edgar changes — he starts as a depressed crow, and he sort of grows into the Lord of the Western Sky. And Elouise gets less arrogant. She’s sort of taken down a peg. And I think Peter really understood that and was able to show that progression in his beautiful, simple drawings somehow. I think they are beautiful. They’re lovely in themselves.

What made you decide to go independent and self-publish Edgar and Elouise?

I must say, my therapist colleagues and my family are probably the reason that we published the book. For me, it was just something fun.

When I’d finished it, my husband read it and said, “Hey, this is good!” Soon after, another colleague came to the house; somehow we got talking, and I gave her a copy to read. She came back and said, “I really like that book. You can read that as a story about animals, but it’s got so many levels to it. I think you should publish it.”

My first thought was, “Well, I can’t publish it because it doesn’t fit into any of the nice, neat, little boxes that publishers want.” And I was right about this. I have one book that’s a real bestseller, so publishers know me. A New York publisher said, “We have to change it all if it’s going to be for nine year olds.”

This time — which is different from my stance with my other books — I said, “I’m not changing a thing.” And there’s a pause. I think it was Penguin who said, “Sue, we love this book, but we can’t put it into any category. What age is it for?” And, “If you're going to teach things to kids, the plots have to be much more obvious, and you’ve got to make very explicit teaching points.” And I said, “First of all, I don’t believe that. I think kids love stories, and they don’t want everything obvious all the time. And, anyway, I’m not changing it.”

Even my agent (who’s done all my other books), suggested I change the language used. All I could say was, “No, you don’t understand. I’m not changing anything. This is me. This [book] is from my heart while playing with my granddaughter, and from my helping people for 35 years. I’m not changing anything. I don’t have to have it on Amazon,” — even though it now is on Amazon, surprisingly enough! — “but don’t worry about it. I’ll just get the best publisher.”

And I did. I got FriesenPress. I had the best self-publisher to publish it with me, and I found an illustrator. I was so lucky to find Peter. I don’t know what box you put the book in, and I don’t care. I don’t care if it fits some marketing algorithm.

When you’re an academic and you write a book, and you’ve put five years into it, it does matter. If a big New York publisher says, “You have to change this chapter,” you have to listen, right? But this is different. This is a West Coast saga. From the North, sagas are traditionally all about people going on a journey, finding themselves, and then finding how to deal with fear and coming together to save their world. That’s what this is, and it’s from my heart. It doesn’t need to fit into anybody else’s nice, neat category.

As a traditional and academic publishing veteran, did anything surprise you about the self-publishing path?

What jumped out at me was simply my stance. Two academic books ago, I wrote a book on attachment and love relationships and people. It was the sort of book that takes you five years to put together, and it’s got a lot of depth in it. I listened to the editor at Guilford Press a lot, and  I disagreed with some of his feedback. But I listened and I worked with it.

With my book Hold Me Tight, I was translating all our academic work into something that I hoped would make a difference in ordinary people’s lives, and I think it has. But it was excruciating to write that one. Taking all your academic work and turning it into something that everyone would want to read, that was agony. I would get to the point where I would listen to the editor and then go up on my bed with a tennis racket and smash the bed for about 10 minutes to get out my rage. That was excruciating, but the book has had a big impact on people, so I’m proud of it. 

The difference here was right from the beginning I said to my agent, “I’m not willing to change a word of this. This is the way it is. If anything changes, it’s because I don’t feel it’s right. I’m not interested in meeting anyone else’s criteria. I’m particularly not interested in anybody telling me what the market wants. The market can go to hell. This is my thing, and if people don’t want to read it, that’s okay.”

So, that was totally different. And to tell you the truth: I like that. After 30 years of [having to make concessions to editors], being able to instead say “no” was kind of freeing.

That’s the wonderful thing about self-publishing, I think. You can just play your own tune. You’re doing it for you, and because you want to. You put out your own vision. Some part of me went through periods of, well, nobody wants to hear about a book about a crow and a fox. But then all my friends kept saying, “This is great. Yeah, do it!” And I thought, “Well, hell, why not?” And you guys [at FriesenPress] were very encouraging. So, now it’s out. It’s an actual thing in the universe. Edgar and Elouise is an actual book. I love it.

Have you caught the fiction-writing bug? Can we expect to see more of Edgar, Elouise, and Spike in the future? 

My husband keeps asking me that. And if you ask my rational prefrontal cortex, well, no — it just came out of playing with my granddaughter. But once my rational prefrontal cortex goes to sleep, these dialogues are already happening. I think Saga 3 is about a albino crow who comes to Beacon Wood, and whether she belongs or not. And what happens with that? Well, she’s not okay because crows are black, don’t you know? 

I have a feeling I need to actually believe that Saga 1 and 2 are out there first, and that people like the stories , and they give something to people. I don’t think Spike’s finished talking to me, actually.

I like these animals. They capture something about who we are, who I am, who everyone is. I’ll probably play with them some more.

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