By: Lee Ann Callaghan

The inspiration for the children’s book character Phiggy the Piggy started back in 2005 in a small Italian Restaurant in San Francisco. My friend and soul sister Dee Kennedy and I worked together at Café Pescatore near Fisherman’s Wharf. Since the day we met we were kindred spirits and had our own lingo to laugh and pass the down time. Everyone became a Petal, Pet, or a Phig. We created characters and passed notes to make each other laugh. And, suddenly together we created a character and named her Phiggy the Piggy.

The Creation of a Children’s Book Character

In a way, Phiggy is our child, with many of our features — a long curl, a mole on her cheek, hazel green eyes an adventurous spirit and a contagious laugh. This child of ours sparked a magical flame in our souls, allowing us to begin creating our dreams of spreading healing and magick to children everywhere.

You may wonder why we spell magick with a k here. Magick represents that creative energy available in the universe to us all in order to work towards manifesting our dreams. For literary sake and proper spelling lessons in this book we have spelled it Magic/Magical.

Most of the characters in our stories are based on real people that have inspired the birth of that character’s magickal soul. Blue Jay was based on my brother James Jay Callaghan whom, like his character, was Dyslexic. Joe the Meerkat is based on Dee’s brother Joe and was created during a play date we had in San Francisco one day while he sported a giant Mohawk.

For years we spent free time writing stories, creating characters and the adventures they travel. Each adventure sends a message, a lesson, or an experience to help children everywhere grow up to be strong, loving, kind souls paying it forward in this crazy world we live in.

But creating the stories and characters was not yet enough to be able share our message. It took years of writing, not writing and searching for just the right artist to bring the characters to life. Suddenly one day in walked Bernadette, the completion to our soul family, putting color and life to the page, creating the visions exactly as we felt them in our hearts.

With each book a percentage will be donated to a nonprofit of our choosing that will somehow help those in need. In this our first book, The Adventures of Phiggy The Piggy: The Magical Dream, a portion of all proceeds will go to our partners at the Saint Vincent de Paul Society of San Francisco. The mission of the St Vincent de Paul Society of San Francisco is to offer hope and service on a direct person-to-person basis, working to break the cycles of homelessness and domestic violence.

We are so grateful to Jasmine and Green Bamboo Publishing for helping this reality come true. We look forward to creating more dreams and sharing them with you.

Want to read the story about Phiggy the Piggy? CLICK HERE to get your copy!