Perseverance makes dream come true

By Sarah Nigbor

Several years ago, former River Falls Journal reporter Gretta (Stark) Leuma was looking for a way to make a little extra money on the weekends. She thought a party princess business for kids might be fun and researched if it was a feasible option for her. One idea turned into another.

“I was talking with one of my aunts about the idea, and she inspired me to write my own stories about my own princesses for the parties,” Leuma said. “The party princess business didn’t end up working out for me, but I’d already started working on the books.”

Fast forward a few years and Leuma has self-published her first children’s book via Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing, called “Princess Livia’s Birthday Ball.”

“I actually started the illustrations on paper with watercolors,” Leuma said. “I later changed my mind and decided to go digital.”

Leuma admitted she started and re-started the project three times before she was satisfied with how it was going. She started the project on paper, then tried digital art, before tackling digital art again. The third time was a charm.

Leuma has been working to learn digital art over the last few years. She took art electives in high school and a photography class in college, but most of what she knows about art she’s gleaned from friends, family and the internet. Her younger sibling is a trained artist and graphic designer.

“I opted to do my own artwork for a few reasons,” Leuma said. “I had a vision in my mind for what I wanted a lot of the art to look like anyway. I’d been working hard on digital art for a while, and because I wanted to challenge myself.”

As a child, Leuma was always drawing or painting something, she said.

“I loved art,” she said. “And then I got intimidated as I got older and experience more of the rich variety of art in the world. I started second guessing myself instead of just drawing or sketching and enjoying the process and my own work.”

Leum also wanted to show the kids in her life that it’s ok to keep trying hard and working on something you enjoy even if it’s hard and even if you are critical of your own work.

“Art is very subjective. If you visit an art museum—for example the Minneapolis Institute of Art (I enjoy visiting there) you’ll see a huge variety of styles and trends and mediums of art,” she said. “Visiting the MIA and seeing all that variety helped me remember that art is highly subjective and I shouldn’t be so critical of myself, but instead enjoy my own artwork because creating it brings me joy.”

As for the writing portion, Leuma has loved books her entire life. Her parents read to her before she can remember, which sparked a lifelong love of reading.

“I also especially enjoy reading to/with the kids in my life,” she said. “I wanted to make this book something my cousin and niece would really enjoy.”

Her younger cousin, niece and nephew were all test readers for her manuscript, which took her about two years of off-and-on writing to complete. The illustrations each took hours to finish. When Leuma became pregnant with her daughter, who is now one- month-old, she wanted to fin ish and publish the book before the baby was born.

“I wanted to be able to read my book to my own baby,” Leuma said. “My daughter, Rilla, is too young for this book, really, but she seems to enjoy the sound of my voice and the bright colors.”

Leuma has several ideas for sequels to Princess Livia’s first adventure. She also hopes to publish other books someday.

“Writing the words was the easy part,” she said. “The illustrations are what took the most time.

I’m hoping that now I’ve figured out what process works best for me, I will be able to finish the next book faster.”

Milestones

After Leuma, then Stark, left the RF Journal in 2019, she entered the communications field, using more fully her communication arts degree.

She and her husband have hit a lot of big milestones, besides publishing her first book, the past few years: They became engaged in Summer 2020, were married in Spring 2021, bought a house last fall and had their first child this past July.

“Though we now live in North St. Paul, Minn., we still visit River Falls often to see my family and just enjoy River Falls,” Leuma said. “My parents and younger sibling, aunt and uncle and cousins all still live in River Falls as well.”

Leuma’s book can be found in the Amazon Kindle store or read for free via Kindle Unlimited.

Gretta Stark Leuma, a former local journalist, recently published her first children’s book. She not only wrote the story but illustrated it as well. Book cover courtesy of Gretta Stark Leuma