Author’s name: Susan Johnston Taylor
Illustrator’s name: Sandie Sonke
Other book titles: ANIMALS IN SURPRISING SHADES: POEMS ABOUT EARTH’S COLORFUL CREATURES
What is your upcoming book title? IF PETS WROTE POEMS: A PARODY COLLECTION
Date of release: April 14, 2026
Preorder or Order link: https://bookshop.org/p/books/if-pets-wrote-poems-a-parody-collection-susan-johnston-taylor/07300936f41fc85a?ean=9781957655659&next=t&aid=55122&listref=our-books-gnomeroadpublishing
Publisher: Gnome Road Publishing
Agent: Mara Cobb
Agency: Lighthouse Literary
Hometown: currently living in Austin, Texas
Social links: @sjohnstontaylor on Instagram
1. What is the premise/pitch for your book?
What if Edgar Allan Poe’s cat wrote The Raven? Or if Emily Dickinson’s dog had her way with words? This whimsical poetry collection reimagines classic poems through the eyes of their poets’ animal friends.
2. What are 5 things you want people to know about your book?
- My rescue dogs Sadie and Sebastian helped inspire this book. Sadie even “wrote” the poem that starts the whole collection.
- Poetry doesn’t have to be fussy and formal. It can be really fun!
- Benjamin Franklin had a pet squirrel and wrote a poem about it. Now you can read the squirrel’s version of history.
- This book would make a great gift for animal-lovers or poetry fans of any age (hint, hint).
- I visited several literary landmarks associated with the poets I featured, including the Edgar Poe Museum in Virginia, the Emily Dickinson Museum in Massachusetts, and the exteriors of the former homes of Christina Rossetti and Elizabeth Barrett Browning in London.
3. What helpful hints or tips can you offer fellow writers about writing, publishing, and promoting a book?
Surround yourself with other people who understand the ups and downs of creative work, and remember: others’ success doesn’t diminish yours. Also, the quirky things that fascinate and delight your imagination could be the books that the world needs from you. Don’t hide your quirks; embrace them.
4. What are 5 fun/quirky facts about yourself as an adult or child?
- Growing up, my family moved from Massachusetts to New Mexico to Washington state (my six years of living in New Mexico surprise most people).
- Nine-year-old me wrote a story about a female stowaway on a pirate ship, and it won honorable mention in a Cricket Magazine writing contest!
- While we lived in New Mexico, I sang in the children’s chorus of the Santa Fe Opera, making my professional stage debut at 14!
- I still perform in opera and musical theatre when I can, so I call myself a storyteller on the page and the page.
- One of my favorite experiences onstage is being part of the Paramount Story Wranglers, a troupe of professional actors, singers, comedians, etc., who bring third graders’ stories to life onstage.
5. What did you learn about yourself while on the journey to publishing this book?
I learned to tune into my own intuition vs. other people’s opinions. After a discouraging critique with an agent at an SCBWI virtual conference, I shelved this manuscript for two years. At the same conference, I pitched the manuscript to an editor who requested it, but I was so discouraged from the other critique that I didn’t send it.
In retrospect, that agent simply didn’t get my vision. Just because they didn’t see its merit didn’t mean it was unpublishable. Your creative work won’t appeal to everyone. Like every other creative discipline, publishing is very subjective, so one person can’t speak for the entire industry, even if they’re an industry professional. I learned not to put so much value in one person’s opinion and to value my own artistic vision.
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