East Lansing author wraps up her seasonal children’s book series

Not only is Amy Dua the author and illustrator of the children’s book series “Woe is Me … The Seasons” — she’s also the publisher.

“When deciding how I wanted to proceed, I did a great deal of research about publishing companies,” Dua, of East Lansing, said. “One thing that had been stressed to me by several professionals in the industry was that once a publishing company purchases the rights to your book, you lose creative control over the process. This really disturbed me. So, my husband and I, both being attorneys, opened After Many Years Publishing, and I took it from there, researching, making connections, hiring an editor and so forth to get my book out there.”

Dua will read and sign copies of “Woe is Me … It’s Summer,” the fourth and final book in the series, on Saturday morning at the East Lansing Public Library. Copies of the book will be available for purchase before its official release on Tuesday (June 2). Musician Wanda Degen will also perform some summery songs.

“Wanda and I first met when my oldest son attended preschool at Abbott Nursery School in East Lansing,” Dua recalled. “She was the music teacher who would come every week to sing with the children and put on performances for the parents. She’s wonderfully engaging with children and music.

“When I published my first book, ‘Woe is Me … It’s Autumn,’ I thought of her because she would incorporate fun songs about the seasons at the nursery school,” Dua continued. “I contacted the library, and they had worked with Wanda in the past and immediately loved the idea. Since then, we have collaborated for the release of my other seasonal books as well.”

The middle of three children, Dua was born and raised just outside of Buffalo, New York. She graduated from the State University of New York Brockport with a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice. She later moved to East Lansing to attend the Michigan State University College of Law, where she earned her juris doctor degree.

“It was there that I met my husband, who began as my study buddy, became my best friend and then, several years later, became my husband,” she said.

The couple has been married for 24 years and has four children, ages 21, 19, 17 and 10. Dua is the founder of Dua & Associates, which specializes in real estate law, appellate practice, child advocacy, guardianship and general civil litigation.

“I was always intrigued by the law,” Dua said. “In high school, I was one of the attorneys for a mock trial in my government and law class, and I loved it, so I went into college with criminal justice as my major. From there, I thought about law school, so I decided to work at a law firm while studying for the LSAT to make sure that was what I wanted to do.”

Since she was a young girl, Dua has always enjoyed writing, particularly rhyming poems.

“I used to tell people I wanted to be a greeting card writer for Hallmark and would write and draw cards for my family members,” she said. “People knew of my writing and started asking me to write speeches for birthdays, and I continued to write them for my family.”

One day, Dua just sat down and wrote “Woe is Me … It’s Autumn.”

“It was fully inspired by the beautiful autumn foliage and my love of nature,” she said. “I really started to look around at all the little creatures that we see every day and thought about how we don’t know a lot about them. We know what we see, but what happens to them when the seasons change? It just went from there.”

After the COVID-19 pandemic, when people started returning to work, her husband told her that he would handle their law practice so she could publish her book. 

“My whole life has revolved around children,” Dua said. “I started babysitting when I was young, then taught at Bible school, and I taught gymnastics for years. I took a juvenile law class in law school and absolutely loved it. That following summer, I interned with the Clinton County Probate Court for the Hon. Marvin Robertson. From there, the main focus of my practice became representing children in abuse/neglect, delinquency and guardianship cases. I have always loved children and went on to have four of my own. So, writing a children’s book seemed like the perfect progression for the things in my life that I love.”

Though they’re meant for kids, writing the “Woe is Me … The Seasons” books wasn’t a walk in the park, according to Dua.

“Every book requires a great deal of research to gather facts about each of the insect and animal characters,” she said. “I found that progressively with each book, I wanted to include more and more information, so I had to eliminate several lines so that it would be even with the other books.

“In this book specifically, there’s a line that took several months to develop,” she continued. “My editor told me I needed to explain ‘chemical reaction’ because I used that phrase in one of the lines about the firefly. I was perplexed trying to simplify this concept while keeping it in rhyme with the correct meter. I will say that it’s my favorite line in the book!”

          For Dua, the best part about writing is playing with words and turning information into fun rhymes, so children don’t even realize that they’re learning. 

“It’s fun to create things in your own mind and bring them to life,” she said. “Writing is a way to do that. I hope children everywhere enjoy reading and learning from my books.”