Former Chenango Lake resident publishes first book of fiction

By Jessica Lewis

Sun Staff Writer

jlewis@evesun.com

NORWICH – After publishing multiple non-fiction books about the wild cats and canines of North America, former Chenango Lake resident Jalma Barrett is trying her hand at something a little different. Her first fiction book, “The Dove Family Tale,” a story about a family of doves, told from the dove’s point of view, will be available soon.

Barrett began writing books before she left Chenango Lake in the mid 1970s. Barrett, then known as June Boersma, worked with her husband Larry – who uses the pen name Larry Allan – to study wild animals in their environment. “We slowly got interested together, because we had done a lot of traveling in the United States, and we wanted to photograph and write about what we’d seen,” Barrett said.

Barrett and Allan traveled all over the country and worked to see the animals at all stages of their lives. “It took about 10 years to do the photography for the books. We tried to capture the complete life cycle,” Allan said.