Have you ever really looked at those small mushrooms that grow in the back yard, or along a damp spot, or tucked back among the grasses of the ocean’s dunes?

At one particular colony of mushrooms, a band of fairies has taken up residence.  They live inside the mushroom houses, are trusting of each other and their elders, eat fairy dust, and drink dewdrops.  One of these fairies, Plinka, would like to travel and see the whole wide world, and “meet some new friends who could tell me everything”.  

Just as she is feeling these growing pains, a mouse washes ashore right near her colony and needs her help.  Her conversations with Carlos the mouse spur her to pack a bag and start the journey.  She doesn’t know WHERE her journey will take her, she just knows she’s got to start.

Along the way, she meets animals that teach her, and us, valuable lessons about safety (Shelby the Owl does not eat her), telling the truth (Plinka has to tell Elsa the songbird not to steal), phobias (Plinka learns that kitty cats are not the most terrifying creatures on the planet), healthy living (Plinka helps a sloth cure his incessant burping),  and weather (Plinka lives through a hurricane AND a thunderstorm).  When she finally settles in the backyard of a yellow-haired girl, she finds the meaning of true home with a frog named Plonky and a bee named Nelson.

The Plinka Adventures are 11 separate but related adventures of between 500 and 1000 words a piece.  The entire set of Adventures is around 8,500 words.  The Plinka Adventures – The First Trilogy won second place in the annual Kansas Writer’s Association competition, and is published in the KWA “Words From The Flatlands” Anthology.  In earning second place, the judge notes “I was charmed by the whimsy of Plinka and her various animal friends and the humorous touches sprinkled through the tale.”