This Tucson scientist went from lab coats to children's literature

You would not need Nancy Drew to learn that nothing about Elaine Powers’ professional career was kids’ stuff. She wore a white lab coat to work, lived in a world of culture dishes and space-age equipment, and searched for compounds that would neutralize newly emerging diseases.

She was an investigative biologist for Sanofi in Oro Valley. It was serious business.

But a fun and funny thing has happened to Powers since she retired from Sanofi in 2016. Everything about her life is now kids’ stuff. Last month, in fact, she self-published her 27th picture book … all of them written to make science fun for kids and educational for the rest of us.

Powers’ latest is “Guam: Return of the Songs.” Like most of her books, it promotes the importance of conservation. In this case, she looks at Guam’s efforts to control the population of brown tree snakes — which have radically changed the island’s ecosystem since they came as cargo-ship stowaways during World War II.

Among other things, their presence led to the gradual disappearance of tropical songbirds.

A project originally suggested by friends at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the book was five years in the making. For a variety of reasons, one of them the pandemic, Powers needed to enlist two editors, two illustrators and two translators to help her complete the effort.

The text is presented both in English and the Guamian language of Chamorro. It was released May 17 and is now available on Amazon.

Powers has become a familiar face in literary circles around Tucson. She is the current president of the Tucson Poetry Society. She belongs to several local writing groups.

Since she markets all her books personally, she is on a first-name basis with a number of local booksellers, too.

Some are surprised to learn Powers was a full-on scientist, but don’t let the lab coat fool you. Before moving to Tucson, she spent her personal time performing in community theater, writing stage plays and dabbling in poetry.

She also has a deep, lifelong love of nature — especially creatures of the reptile persuasion. Need proof? Her current roommates include seven iguanas, 12 tortoises, two box turtles and one red tegu.

Stir all those passions together, and you become one the most prolific authors in Arizona. She has published 27 books in the last eight years. Top that, James Patterson!

Powers began down the road toward self-publishing in 2013, shortly after moving to Tucson. She had developed a story about a curly-tailed lizard she met in the Bahamas. She needed an editor. She needed a plan.

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Fortunately, Powers met a locally-based literary consultant named Nora Miller, and together they started down a path Elaine still walks today.

“In my case, there were a couple of reasons self-publishing made the most sense,” Powers said. “For one thing, most of my books have niche audiences. They are set in the Bahamas, the Caymans and Tucson. The big publishers would rather see themes that will sell everywhere. The biggest reason, though, is that publishers discourage bright illustrations and rhyming text. I like bright illustrations and rhyming text. They make the story fun, and I wanted my first books to be my books.”

At the time, an Amazon platform called CreateSpace Publishing was beginning to popularize print-on-demand books. The self-published book boom was about to begin, and Powers helped light the fuse. “Curtis Curly-tail and the Ship of Sneakers“ was released in 2014 and now is available both in Spanish and French.

The curly-tail series has sold well in the Bahamas, primarily in museums, bookshops and souvenir stores. Her second series, featuring Cayman iguanas, became popular in resort destinations such as George Town, West Bay and Bodden Town.

More recently, she has developed a series of stories about creatures we know here in Tucson. “Don’t Make Me Rattle,” “Don’t Call Me Turtle,” and “Don’t Make Me Fly“ feature rattlesnakes, tortoises and roadrunners.

“Queen of the Night,” published three years ago, will always be timely in June. It features the desert flower that blooms only one night a year. A watch party will be held at Tohono Chul on the appropriate evening … sometime in the next two weeks.

Word is out among Tucsonans now exploring their own self-publishing projects. The Pima County Public Library’s current Writer in Residence, Lori Alexander, has pointed several first-time authors to Powers to learn about the good, bad and exhausting of self-publishing.

“It’s a lot of fun, but it’s a lot of work, too,” Powers said. “You’re not just the author, you’re the publicist, distributor and sales director, too. If somebody is ready for all that, they should go for it!”

Footnotes

Powers’ books can usually be found at Mostly Books, Antigone, Tohono Chul and the Sabino Canyon Visitors Center.

Another poet, Robert Frost, overcame initial resistance from publishers by running his first significant poem in the newspaper. “My Butterfly,” appeared in the New York Independent on Nov. 8, 1894. CreateSpace wasn’t an option then.

A more contemporary success story is “Still Alice” by Lisa Genova. Unable to find an acceptable offer, she self-published “Still Alice” in 2007. Released later by Simon and Schuster, it was on The New York Times bestseller list for 40 weeks. At last count, it had been published in 20 languages.

Several weeks ago, Pima County Public Library announced that the Martha Cooper Branch would close this month, making way for a yearlong construction project. Last week, the branch regulars received a temporary reprieve. The library will remain open at least through the end of the summer.