Words and photo by Tristan Ovington.

Lockdown forced many people to become more creative, but author Susan Stennett, 54, took this to another level when she became inspired to write a story from the perspective of her dog Raven.
“Raven was born in March 2020 and I thought it was a shame for him to grow up with all the humans around him acting so strangely due to the pandemic.
“I decided to document his perspective in a book which features illustrations by Nicole Wykes. I had a lot of fun writing it.
“It all started during the pandemic as I began writing opinion rants on Facebook about my views on the lockdowns.
“And on one occasion I wrote a post from my dog Raven’s point of view and people loved it. They told me I should make it into a full length diary with illustrations, so I did!
“I used to be a teacher and still do private tuition,” explains Susan. “I have written many books but never tried to get any published and I was offered a publishing deal but declined the terms so decided to self-publish.
“Trying to get it published is a huge effort and the challenge was trying to get places to accept it.
What advice does Susan have for budding authors out there? “For anyone considering writing their first book, I would say just go for it because it is an enormous thrill when hundreds of copies of the book arrive with your name on it.
“Follow your heart and you will succeed. In the future, I would love for the book to become big and to have a sequel published.”

Susan’s book Raven’s Pandemic Tails is available at Stuff Emporium Salisbury and online at Amazon