Troy Cummings’ ‘Can I Be Your Dog?’ shortlisted for Indiana Authors Award

While a Hollywood star trotting out the old line, “It’s an honor just to be nominated” may come off as a bit trite, when Greencastle author Troy Cummings expresses a similar sentiment, it comes from a place of genuine respect for his fellow authors.

With his book “Can I Be Your Dog?” shortlisted for an Indiana Authors Award this week, Cummings expressed his admiration for his fellow nominees. He’s gotten to know many of his fellow children’s authors through conventions and workshops.

“It’s a big honor to be on this list at all with these other awesome Indiana authors,” Cummings said. “We’re in this in together with the same kind of job, so it’s cool to see these other authors on this same list with my book.”

“Can I Be Your Dog?” tells the story of Arfy, a homeless dog who lives in an alley.

Not content with his plight, the charming pooch writes letters to every house and business on Butternut Street, in search of a home.

“The whole book is letters back and forth between Arfy and the people writing back,” the Greencastle native notes. “It’s epistolary — just letters.”

The idea for an epistolary book came from a prompt from a writing partner who dared Cummings to write the book entirely with letters.

“I have a few different author friends and we’ll give each other little prompts and things,” he said.

More than simply a fun exercise, though, Cummings soon realized he was honing his skills for literary voice.

“What’s fun about writing letters is it’s an exercise in voice. Everybody in the story has to have their own voice,” he said. “Some of them are grumpy, some of them are polite. They write on different kinds of paper, so it should be different every time you turn the page.”

Little details like using different kinds of paper on each page are the little nuggets that make for a successful picture book.

“Sometimes you’re reading to a little kid and you have to read it every night,” Cummings said.

And while the book certainly has an appeal to the youngest of readers, some teachers have used the book as a way to teach older elementary students about voice, letter writing or persuasive writing.

“It’s been fun to see kids take this and write their own little stories and letters,” Cummings said.

While a simple prompt may seem like a humble beginning for a New York Times bestseller that’s also been featured on “The Today Show,” Cummings said that’s how his stories begin.

“Every single book I’ve done has come from either a prompt or something I’ve observed,” he said.

He cites “The Notebook of Doom,” a series of chapter books for which he is also known. In the books, anything and everything can turn into a monster, from broccoli to a fire hydrant. These thought exercises come with some challenges.

“How do I make this look like a little monster?” Cummings said. “How does it behave like a monster?”

It’s something he carries into work with children on writing.

“Working with kids, we do prompts all the time,” Cummings said. “To me, the fun part of writing is trying to connect the dots. And it’s a fun way to teach writing. It feels less like work and more like a game.”

Cummings encourages others — kids or adults — to develop their own talents for writing and drawing.

“Carry a notebook around,” he said. “Writing and drawing feel like the same thing. My goal is to tell a story and both can do that. You can always been playing with ideas.”

He also said that while emulation isn’t a bad thing, don’t worry if it doesn’t come out “perfectly.”

“There’s no one right way to do it. I would try to draw a certain way and I’d get hung up if I couldn’t do it a certain way,” Cummings said, noting that this is how artists and writers discover their own style. “Don’t make it have to be perfect. A lot of time it’s not perfect.”

Finally, he encourages collaboration, just as his idea for “Can I Be Your Dog?” came from a challenge from a friend.

“For kids, team up with a friend,” Cummings said. “Go back and forth and try to make your friends laugh. The actual act of doing it is immediately rewarding.”

The shortlist in the children’s category for the 2020 Indiana Authors Awards also includes:

• “The Magnificent Mya Tibbs: Mya in the Middle” by Crystal Allen,

• “Granted” by John David Anderson,

• “Book of Flight” by Gabrielle Balkan,

• “Clackety Track: Poems About Trains, a charming book of poems about trains” by Skila Brown,

• “Hello, I’m Here!” by Helen Frost,

• “Wake Up, Woods” by Michael Homoya, Shane Gibson and Gillian Harris,

• “Attucks! Oscar Robertson and the Basketball Team that Awakened a City” by Phillip Hoose.

Other shortlists have also been named in recent days. The shortlists represent work by more than 30 writers with Hoosier roots in the following categories: children’s, young adult, poetry, genre, emerging, fiction and nonfiction.

Each category winner will receive a $5,000 cash prize, a hand-crafted limestone award and the opportunity to make a $500 donation to an Indiana library of their choice.