My ALLi author guest this episode is Cheryl Carpinello, a retired English teacher from Colorado who writes books based on Arthurian legend and ancient history to help reach reluctant young readers. She draws on more than 20 years of classroom experience and brings her stories to life through school visits and workshops. Cheryl is also part of an international author consortium that offers support and collaboration for indie writers.
Listen to the Inspirational Indie Author Interview: Cheryl Carpinello
Inspirational Indie Author Interview: Cheryl Carpinello — About the Author
Cheryl Carpinello is a retired high school English teacher who writes stories rooted in Arthurian legend, ancient history, and mythology to help young readers—especially reluctant ones—connect with timeless values like courage, honor, and friendship. Her Feathers of the Phoenix series blends biblical themes with time travel, while her Grandma/Grandpa’s Tales support early reading skills for children as young as four. Cheryl also leads medieval-themed school workshops and poetry activities, and she enjoys connecting with readers at fairs and events. You can find Cheryl on her website, Amazon, Facebook, Instagram, and X.
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About the Host
Author Howard Lovy has been a journalist for 40 years, and now amplifies the voices of independent author-publishers and works with authors as a developmental editor. Find Howard at howardlovy.com, LinkedIn and X.
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Further Reading
Read the Transcript
Howard Lovy: My guest this episode is Cheryl Carpinello, a retired English teacher from Colorado who writes books based on our Arthurian legend and ancient history to reach reluctant young readers.
She draws on more than 20 years of classroom experience and brings her stories to life through school visits and workshops.
Cheryl is also part of an international author consortium that offers support and collaboration for indie writers. I'll let Cheryl Carpinello tell her story.
Cheryl Carpinello: Hello, I'm Cheryl Carpinello. I live in Colorado, and I write tales and legends for reluctant readers and others.
Howard Lovy: Great. I know that a lot of kids start out as reluctant readers, but part of your job as an ex-English teacher is to get them excited about it.
Cheryl's Early Life and Love of Reading
Howard Lovy: Before we go into that, let's go back to the beginning. Where did you grow up, and was reading and writing always a part of your life?
Cheryl Carpinello: I'm a Colorado native. I've always enjoyed reading, writing a little bit, but not a whole lot. Mostly a lot of reading. I used to find the books that my parents would get us for Christmas; I'd find them before to see what I was actually getting.
I love to read, and I still have a lot of my books from my childhood in our book room downstairs. I don't throw much away, I keep them.
Howard Lovy: I'm a pack rat too. I have boxes and boxes of books that I haven't read in years, but I don't want to get rid of them.
Cheryl Carpinello: My grandkids have read some of them, but not all of them.
Howard Lovy: So, what drew you to become an English teacher? Was there a particular teacher or book that inspired that path?
Cheryl Carpinello: No, I just think I always wanted to. I used to always play teacher when I was a little kid, with my stuffed animals, those kinds of things.
It was just something that I gravitated toward and enjoyed, so that's what I did. It took me a while to get there, but I got there, and I really enjoyed teaching. I taught high school English, and I loved every minute of it.
Howard Lovy: What about was it that you loved? Was it working with the kids or having a good excuse to read, or a little bit of everything?
Cheryl Carpinello: Working with the kids, I really enjoyed that. I taught a lot of stuff that a lot of the other English teachers didn't. I did a lot of the classics and things that the kids really enjoyed. I did Greek literature, Roman literature, medieval literature, all that kind stuff.
I'm a strange person in that I moved away from the American literature. I taught that class for one semester or one year, and I didn't like teaching American Lit, and so I just gravitated toward the others, and that's what I taught.
Learning to Engage Reluctant Readers
Howard Lovy: Now, during your teaching years, you encountered many reluctant readers. What do you think causes that disconnect for kids, and how do you try to reach them in the classroom?
Cheryl Carpinello: A lot of it is just they just hadn't found something that they enjoyed reading, or their parents weren't from a reading background and so they didn't read, they didn't encourage them. But a lot of them just hadn't found anything to light that spark, that's what I found.
So, when I was teaching, I taught the legend of King Arthur, and I had kids that wouldn't read anything else, but when we did that unit, they would read. They'd go to the library and actually check out materials on King Arthur. They really loved that.
They liked the ancient world, the ancient Greek literature. I don't know how many times I taught Antigone, and they just thoroughly loved that. A strange batch of kids, but that's what they gravitated towards, and that's what I ended up writing about.
Howard Lovy: There's something to that. Eventually, the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings, and eventually a Game of Thrones, that kind of genre became really popular.
Why do you think those stories still resonate with young readers today?
Cheryl Carpinello: Because they still have a place in this world. We always talked about, what does this mean and is this valid today?
Just like with Antigone, something you would've never thought high school students, especially boys would like, but I said, guys, she was the first {inaudible}, and look at all those things that she had to do to become the true person that she was. She struggled all of her young life to do this, and they understood that. They really did.
They understood the concepts behind Arthurian legend, about honor and loyalty and friendship. Those things they took to heart, and I think those are the things that spoke to them and still speak to many people today. Those are always being remade and remade in different forms. It's amazing.
Howard Lovy: Yeah, definitely.
So, it wasn't like pulling teeth for you? These stories naturally attracted these kids?
Cheryl Carpinello: I was amazed. We would read things like Lord of the Flies and even that, more modern than the stuff that I usually taught, they liked that kind of stuff. Things that appealed to them at their ages.
High school kids always struggle, and they struggle with trying to figure out who they are and how they're supposed to act, and what they're supposed to do.
Most of the stories that we dealt with, nearly all of them dealt with people in similar situations trying to figure out who they were, where they were supposed to go, what were they supposed to be like, and it helped them, I think, on their way.
Howard Lovy: So, they could relate to that because it's like them, like these characters they're searching themselves.
Cheryl Carpinello: Exactly.
The Journey from Teacher to Author
Howard Lovy: So, while you were teaching, did you always have a secret manuscript of your own in your desk drawer?
Cheryl Carpinello: I've always had a few of those. They're kind of buried and will never see the light of day.
Howard Lovy: What made you decide to turn your classroom experience into a writing career? Did you always imagine yourself being an author?
Cheryl Carpinello: I always thought I could do something, but I didn't have the time as an English teacher. My time was just very little that I had free time.
All the years that I taught, the 20 some years that I taught King Arthur, every time I asked the kids what they knew about the legend before we started, they'd always tell me all about King Arthur, Lancelot, Merlin, the Holy Grail, all this stuff, and when I asked them what they knew about Guinevere, I got the same answer year after year, she married Arthur, she cheated on him, she was the downfall of Camelot.
It's like, okay, that is not good.
So, I decided when I retired, that I would pick up the Arthurian legend and do my own tales in that genre, and I would tell the story of the Princess Guinevere, the girl Guinevere, at 13 before she is come of age, even though on the evening of her 13 birthday her dad tells her he has promised her a marriage to an older man.
I wanted them to see what the girl was like, not the woman that everybody thinks she has become. I wanted them to see her struggles in growing up. So, that's where I started my stories, was with Guinevere at age 13.
Howard Lovy: Kind of the prequel, I guess you would call it now.
Cheryl Carpinello: I turned that into a trilogy of her and her best friend, and their trials and tribulations trying to get to who they think they're supposed to be and how they're supposed to take their place in the world.
Howard Lovy: Now, you write across different age groups. That first book, was that for early readers, middle grade, teenagers?
Cheryl Carpinello: The Guinevere that was starting about third grade, unless they're really good readers at second grade, but third through sixth/seventh. Not much higher than that.
Howard Lovy: What attracts you to that particular age?
Cheryl Carpinello: I think that's where the kids started finding out that they didn't like to read and so I wanted to reach them earlier and hopefully get some of those kids converted before they got into high school.
From the feedback that I get, I think I've been fairly successful with doing that, with getting kids to actually enjoy reading and stories.
Why Indie Publishing?
Howard Lovy: So, you decided to go the indie route, and you've published about a dozen books as an indie author, what led you to take the indie publishing route rather than pursue a traditional deal?
Cheryl Carpinello: I had a traditional publisher on candidate for one of my Arthurian legend books, but they didn't want to do a print book, they just wanted to do an eBook, and the kids that I write for, they need a print book. They need to see the words on the page. They need to see the pictures that I put in the books in those Arthurian legend books to get them involved in the story.
So, I let them have the eBook for about a year and I kept pressing them for the paperback and they said, no, we're just not going to go that route. So, I said, that's fine, that's where I want to go, so I would like all my rights back and I will do that. So, that's what I did.
I also found that when you queried traditional publishers, your book may be two or three years down the line before it ever gets published and I really wanted my stuff out there. I wanted to be able to relate kids to my stories and let them see that this stuff was out there now, not when they're too old to take advantage of it. So, that's probably the main reason.
I'm in charge of what I do, and I enjoy being in charge, and I just have never thought, after that first time, to ever change that.
Howard Lovy: Do you do your own illustrations, or do you have someone else do that?
Cheryl Carpinello: No, I can't draw a straight line. I have real trouble.
Howard Lovy: That's a big part of a children's book; is it difficult to find a partner who can imagine exactly what you imagine?
Cheryl Carpinello: No, because I put together a collage of what I want or describe it really well, and then they can go from my description, and we just fine tune from there.
For my Arthurian books, which are the only ones that had the pictures because they're for that younger group, I only start each chapter with a simple line drawing, nothing exorbitant or anything, just simple, just to bring them into the story.
Now, my children's books for the beginning readers, the Grandma and Grandpa Tales, those are very heavily illustrated, and I do have a gentleman that I got through Fiverr, and he's done all of my books so far and has done a beautiful job for me.
The Quest Books Consortium
Howard Lovy: Now you're also part of a UK-based author consortium called The Quest Books, can you tell me how that all came together and what being part of that group has meant for your writing?
Cheryl Carpinello: Wow. That's a tale, I'll tell you. I knew the author that started it, Wendy Layton Porter. I knew her from a children's blog that we used to participate in and do the posting of the interviews and things for this lady, and her and Fiona, we knew each other through that.
Wendy started this, she was with another company, I don't remember what it was, and they went bottoms up, and so she started her own author consortium, Silver Quill Publishing.
I watched what she did, and I liked it, and I said, can I join? And she said, sure.
I think we have 13 or 14 authors now throughout the UK. She's in France now, and we have an Arabian Princess who does ecology books for young readers, and then I'm the only US based author that belongs there.
So, it's just {inaudible} place we can go, and we can edit each other's books and talk about different things that we see and different things that we want to do. We don't do much more than that. It's just a publishing umbrella, but the backups for the other authors on there is always nice. I've used them a couple times. It's just nice, and it's small enough that you don't get lost in anything too.
Howard Lovy: It's a group of like-minded people, but it's not a publishing company?
Cheryl Carpinello: No, we just publish under that umbrella, Silver Quill Publishing.
Howard Lovy: Oh, I see.
Cheryl Carpinello: Everybody has control of their own books and their own publishing. That's what I think makes it work so well, because we all like to have our books under our own thumbnail so we can keep track of what's going on and how it's coming out, and that allows us to do that. But it also gives us that little, I don't know what you want to call it, the respectability I guess, because it's Silver Quill publishing, and so they just think, okay.
Howard Lovy: Oh, I see. Yeah.
Cheryl Carpinello: Being an indie author is tough.
Howard Lovy: Yeah, it's also very lonely, the writing itself is very lonely, so it's good to bounce things off of other people. I'm assuming you're each other's beta readers and do some editing work for each other.
Cheryl Carpinello: We also have meetings every once in a while. We all get together and talk about how things are going, is there something we'd like to group as a whole to do a little differently. So, right now we're looking into how we can do more advertising as a whole group instead of just individuals.
Marketing Strategies for Children’s Indie Authors
Howard Lovy: That was going to be my next question because it's always a tricky one for indie authors, how do you market yourself?
Cheryl Carpinello: It was so easy when I had one or two books. I was on top of everything. The more books you get, the harder it is because you've got to reach into more different places and it's very time consuming.
I use a lot of companies that I've used over the years to do my advertising. BooksGoSocial out of Dublin, Ireland is one that I've used for many years. They do a real good job of promoting, and so I look for companies like that, that I have used and I can trust, or I've seen that other people have said this is a good group to go with.
I'm trying to do some more on my own, but my time just seems to fly.
Howard Lovy: How specifically do you market your books? Are you marketing to parents or the kids, or both?
Cheryl Carpinello: I do parents because my kids can't buy on the internet. But I also do a lot of craft fairs, school fundraisers, I've even done farmer's markets, and I do a lot of markets at the different schools around the area here, and that's where my marketing really pays off. I do my most with those guys because they can actually see my books, we can talk about them, they can get a feel for them, and they've got their buying person right there with them.
Howard Lovy: Yeah, that's something that I think a lot of indie authors are rediscovering, the power of local, being at local events.
Cheryl Carpinello: Yeah, and I've done that for many years. Every once in a while, I branch out into comic cons because of my ancient Egyptian books.
A couple of the authors groups that I belong to here in the state have booths at huge holiday markets here in town that I do. So yeah, I've done that forever. I don't think I'll ever give that up.
Howard Lovy: Part of that also is you do school visits and offer medieval storytelling and writing workshops. Is that pretty rewarding and does it bring about sales or further interest in your books?
Cheryl Carpinello: It brings about interest. It doesn't bring about a lot of sales because I do a lot of inner-city schools, but they're very enjoyable to do because we do medieval illuminated poetry and there really is no limit on the topics that they can do.
They not only write, but they also get to draw and make pictures that go along with poems.
Howard Lovy: Oh, okay. Tell me more about that. What is medieval illuminated poetry?
Cheryl Carpinello: It's poetry, usually about medieval times. We try to kind of set it there, but sometimes we go afar. They do castles and knights, they do some dragons.
But then the illumination are the medieval manuscripts, if you've looked at any of the books that have them in, they're decorated like crazy. Lots of colors, lots of designs. Lots of pictures that fit the different stories that are being told. So, that's what we do to a very small extent.
The kids will do a poem of a dragon who is leaving the hills. He is off on a new adventure or something. So, they draw the dragon, they get the background in there, and then they write their little poem to go with it. It's a lot of fun. I do K through eight, and it works for any of those grades. Just depends on how much you have to add to it so the kids can figure out what's going on, and they enjoy it.
Howard Lovy: So, it's not just about the writing, it's about putting together the whole package.
Cheryl Carpinello: The whole package and the fact that, yes, you can do this. That's probably the biggest thing.
Oh, I don't like to write, I can't do that. Yes, you can, let me show you how.
I've never had anybody refuse to do it, and I've had some magnificent poems and illustrations to go with them over the years. It's just been amazing to watch the kids work.
Howard Lovy: That's great.
What Cheryl’s Working on Next
Howard Lovy: Now, your newest series, Feathers of the Phoenix, brings in biblical mythology and time travel.
Tell me where that came from.
Cheryl Carpinello: Oh, that came from my head. I've always liked Atlantis and Plato, the Greeks and all that kind of stuff. I've always been a big fan of that stuff. So, that's where it comes from.
Just the fact to move on from the younger kids into some older kids’ audience is one of the reasons that I did that, and I don't know how the four Horsemen came, but they came in it.
It's all about raising the island of Atlantis so the people who still live here on Earth that are descended from Atlantis can finally go back home.
It just came to me. I can't even tell you how. I just thought, that would be such a neat deal because Atlantis is out there somewhere, why couldn't it just rise again?
So, the first book was The Atlantean Horse.
I'm getting ready to push the publish button on the second book, which is Under the North Star and then there's three other books in that series. So, I'm going to get started on the third one, which it's going to be From Pompei's Ashes. So, it's going to be dealing with mostly the ancient world, although I did have to throw Iceland in there because I love Iceland.
Howard Lovy: A lot of authors of science fiction or fantasy or mythological tales also have an eye on the real world. Are there real-world lessons in your books or is it just pure fantasy?
Cheryl Carpinello: Oh no. They're always learning about themselves and that's the basis of my books. The kids in the books are always learning about themselves as the kids are that are reading the books.
Rosa in Sons of the Sphinx is, and I'll spoil it a little bit for everybody, is a 15-year-old high school girl who hears voices and there is nothing that could put you further out from friends and kids than being different. So, she has to figure out how she's going to deal with being different, getting laughed at, and how she handles that and how she learns to come to appreciate the difference that she has.
The kids are always the main point of my stories. It's their lives and how they learn to react, how they learn to grow up a little bit in some cases, and like themselves.
Advice for Aspiring Children’s Book Writers
Howard Lovy: I guess looking back at your journey from teacher to indie author to educator and storyteller, what advice would you give to other writers who are trying to reach young readers, especially those who don't think they like books?
Cheryl Carpinello: Be sure you know the kids. My years as an educator, the kids' feelings and their reactions to things are engraved in my brain and I understand them.
It's tough, I think to write for young kids if you don't have any concept of what they're like, and that is the hardest thing.
The majority of them are not happy with themselves. They're not sure who they are. Each day, for a lot of them is a struggle, and so you have to understand that and incorporate into your readings so that they can see themselves a little bit.
You don't want them to see too much, but so they can see themselves a little bit and understand that there is a way that they can go to make their lives better and to make them understand who they are and what they need to be doing.
Howard Lovy: It shows them a way forward just by using their imagination.
Wonderful. Thank you, Cheryl. This has been fascinating. I appreciate you taking the time to talk to us.
