![]() Vic and Hilma Montgomery, her grandparents, farmed near Wykoff their whole lives. Mejia is familiar with southeastern Minnesota. ![]() "It took a year between the time (the publisher) picked it up and when it was published." She wrote two drafts of The Dragon Keeper, then shopped it around looking for a publisher. You get an idea when you're doing something that has no relation to writing." "It will happen at a meeting at work, or in the morning," she said. She gets ideas for her writing at inappropriate times, she said. "You can go anywhere if you open a book," she said. She said she especially enjoys the adventure of fiction. She was inspired to become a writer by her mother, who introduced her to the joy of a good story. "Zoos have gotten better about addressing the needs of the animals rather than the needs of the people (who visit the zoos.") "They would last about two weeks," she said. When zoos first began keeping the animals, zookeepers put the dragons in small metal cages, she said. There are about 4,000 to 5,000 Komodo dragons left in the wild in Indonesia and the Komodo Islands, she said. "In captivity they sometimes become more social and are willing to develop relationships with humans," she said. In the wild, they'll attack water buffaloes, and they've been known to attack humans. Komodo dragons can grow to as long as 10 feet and may weigh up to 300 pounds, she said. Jata seems tame (in the story) but wild animals are never tame." "That's good because it's not the best of zoos."īefore Mejia wrote her book, she dedicated herself to learning as much as she could about Komodo dragons. "The Zoo of America is fictional," Mejia told her library audience. The Komodo dragon's parthenogenesis is intriguing to zoo visitors and members of the media alike. Yancy becomes especially protective after Jata, who had no mate, gives birth to three hatchlings. 20 to read a section of The Dragon Keeper and to discuss some of the fine points of the book, which tells the story of Meg Yancy, a keeper of reptiles at the fictional Bloomington's Zoo of America. Mejia visited the Stewartville Public Library on Saturday, Oct. That's when Mejia came up with the idea for her first novel, The Dragon Keeper, which she wrote as her capstone/thesis project to earn a master of fine arts in writing from Hamline University of St. "I thought it was a huge thing, and that it should be getting more attention." ![]() Mindy Mejia was on a business trip in 2006 when she heard about a Komodo dragon at a London zoo that produced babies by parthenogenesis, or a virgin birth.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |