Thursday, June 17, 2021 • The BuLLeTIn
GO! MAGAZINE • PAGE 7
LOCAL LITERARY HIGHLIGHTS
bendbulletin.com/goread
Bend father pens ‘Empty,’
a children’s book about grief
BY DAVID JASPER • The Bulletin
I
nspiration struck Richard Potvin after midnight in August 2018. “I just woke up and went, ‘There’s a story I need to write down,’” he said.
“Sometimes, you know, if you go back to bed, you never get them back.” Rather than let his idea go unrealized, Potvin, now 62, got up at 1 a.m.
and sat down to write. In just the one session, he penned “Empty,” a self-published children’s book in which a young girl comes to terms with
the death of her neighbor, “Mr. Wick.”
It debuted in April, and Potvin believes it’s timely given
the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
The following morning, he said, “My
wife said, ‘You got out of bed last
night. What did you do?’ I said,
‘I wrote a book,’” Potvin re-
called. Note that he does not
say “draft.”
“I don’t think I changed any
of the words. I mean, it was
just there,” he said.
The simple, straightforward
tale begins, “Mr. Wick was my
friend. He lived next door to me,
my sister and my mom.”
When asked if The longest part of the
was finding an artist
he often gets project
to illustrate “Empty.”
“I had a few false starts
up and writes in
with artists,” Potvin said. He
the middle of the eventually chose was Steph-
Drake, a children’s book
night, he laughed anie
designer in Cambridgeshire,
and said, “I am a England.
“I just liked the muted
bit of a strange
tones,” he said of Drake’s
work. “We collaborated
character.”
well. She understood what I
Richard Potvin, author
was looking for. She sort of
caught my tone.”
The rocking chairs seen on the book’s cover are depic-
tions of chairs from the barn Potvin’s former home in Ak-
ron, New York, near Buffalo, where he and his wife lived
before moving to Bend last year.
“The cat on the fence was our neighbors’ cat. And they
lived next door to us, and did have chickens,” he said, re-
ferring to scenes from the book. “The little girl, when we
Continued on next page
Submitted photo
Stephanie Drake, a children’s book designer in Cambridgeshire, England, illustrated Richard Potvin’s book.