When life gives you a fork in the road, take it and don’t look back By Robertson Hopkins
G
reg Beatty didn’t expect to be writing children’s literature. Growing up in Canada he played hockey, often sitting around the locker room with teammates comparing missing teeth, facial scars and broken bones. He was recruited to play varsity hockey in the US at Colby College in Maine. Upon graduation, he went to law school in Boston and laced up his skates for the Bruins Old Timers, a team of retired professionals.
it changed again with the arrival of their daughter, Mai. “I’m not sure family life presented another fork in the road,” he says, “but it certainly offered a path to maturity. I had to reset my purpose and priorities.”
The first fork in the road occurred when Greg passed the New York bar exam and had just spent his entire savings to obtain a Green Card. Shortly afterward, he got an invite to work in the Bangkok office of a leading U.S. law firm. Perhaps a two-year sidestep in Asia would strengthen his CV with the international experience it would bring.
“We used to read stories to Mai, but her English was not strong at the time and none of the stories related to her,” Rung says. So, Greg wrote a short story about a girl who transfers to a new school and tries to fit in. Instead of making English the challenge, he gave the central character an unusual physical feature. She sits beside the class bully and thus the conflict unfolds.
The next twenty-five years was all international - a succession of legal and executive roles, working on Asia’s big telecom and energy projects, Hollywood movie licenses, and technology contracts for international hotel chains. The sharp elbows in the hockey arena were replaced by the intellectual battles and occasional political hijinks of the business world. The bigger the deal, the bigger the boardroom brawl. Verbal fisticuffs are part of the scene. Life changed when Greg met his Thai wife, Rung, and
When Mai turned seven, Greg and Rung moved her from Thai school to an international school in Bangkok. That move was the trigger for Greg and Mai’s first book.
Mai liked the initial story but insisted on a few changes, and in particular, she didn’t want the lead character and the bully to become friends when the conflict resolves. Greg and Mai revised the story many times over two years. Their collaboration resulted in the critically acclaimed, Snow Flake and the Big Race, published in 2018. It was illustrated by award-winning author and cartoonist, Colin Cotterill. An audio version of the book was narrated by Dan Russell, the voice of the TV series, The Greg Beatty and family
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April - May - June 2021