Goats, Crime, And the Cello
 Morgan McGivern |
(3/13/2008) People may not associate a sharp interest in matters criminal with a fondness of goats, but they may be linked more closely than one thinks. At least if you talk with Brandie Woodward they are. Ms. Woodward, who has a degree in criminal justice, published her first children’s book, “Lloyd the Goat,” on Jan. 12.
She lived with her family in upstate New York as a little girl, moving to Amagansett in the mid-1990s. When she was 8 and still upstate, some neighbors had a goat in their front yard that she became very fond of. Now she lives on the Napeague stretch with her mother, Kimberly Woodward, and their three Siberian cats, Ivan, Cybil, and Piper.
Ms. Woodward graduated from East Hampton Middle School and East Hampton High School. After her father died in 2004, she moved to Arizona for two years and finished an online degree in criminal justice — that she had started at Indiana State University — at Briar State University in Sierra Vista, Ariz.
Why criminal justice? “I was always fascinated with the psychological aspect of it . . . I studied a lot of serial killers,” she said the other day at her house. She also studied medical assisting, which would allow her to work in a doctor’s office. “It’s sort of like being a paramedic,” she said.
Another interest of Ms. Woodward’s is the philosophy of religion, a subject she got a doctorate in, also from Briar State. Perhaps the “darkness” of exploring what motivates criminals to do what they do made her long for lightness. In ninth grade she had written a story for school about Lloyd, the name she had given the upstate goat, that her older brother had been encouraging her to get published.
She rewrote the story and got it accepted at BookSurge.com, an online publisher that is part of Amazon, which set her up with an illustrator, Taillefer Long, who sent her rough drafts of sketches, first black-and-white sketches, then color ones. At first the goat was white, but she told Mr. Long she wanted Lloyd to be more black, and eventually she accepted his illustrations.
One of the main characters in the story is a turtle, based on a turtle that lived in her backyard in Arizona. That turtle became quite tame and would walk up to the back patio to be given cherry tmomatoes by Ms. Woodward, who would also swim with the turtle in their swimming pool.
Ms. Woodward learned to play the cello at East Hampton Middle School from Troy Grindle, who gave her private lessons once a week, and she practiced with the orchestra every day. The orchestra performed at the Ashawagh Hall Christmas tree lighting, spring and winter concerts, and lunches for senior citizens.
Although she practices now on her own, Ms. Woodward is thinking of looking for other musicians to play with.
She is also considering becoming a private eye, which can be done online as well. “It’s sort of funny,” Ms. Woodward said, “I spent my years in college studying serial killers and crime and then right after that I wrote a children’s book.”
Her favorite writers are Thomas Harris, who wrote the “The Silence of the Lambs,” and John Grisham. Ms. Woodward already has written two other stories about Lloyd the goat, one about Christmas and Hanukkah. She wants to see how the first one does before submitting the other manuscripts. Although it is available at certain bookstores, “Lloyd the Goat” can be ordered online at BookSurge.com or Amazon.com.