INSPIRE: Albany author Gleni Bailey finds success with fun rhymes and family values in madcap animal stories

Gleni Bailey has always loved writing and she made a career from it long before she became a children’s author with 16 books in the publishing pipeline. Based in Albany, she previously worked in administration, writing and assessing grant applications for a variety of organisations, which is obviously worthy but didn’t quite hit the spot in terms of creative fulfilment. The addition to the family of a grandson, however, changed everything as she started drawing on her everyday experiences to create fun children’s books entirely in rhyme. She now has a collection of 16, all of which will be published over the next two years and all of which feature madcap animals, plus lots of messages around family values. Teachable moments aside, the stories are first and foremost funny tales about chooks and magpies, bunnies and alligators, all triggered by incidents which happened to Bailey herself. The verses are witty and clever and are so ingrained in her head that she drops them into conversation. It’s a bit like having a coffee with The Cat In The Hat. So, writing a book, how clever you are! And the first one was done as you drove in your car! Chooky’s Salon, the book which set everything going, did actually come about as she drove north on Albany Highway. “I saw this young adult chicken clucking away — it was really enjoying life and it just stuck in my brain,” Bailey said. “By the time I got to Mt Barker I had a complete story.” The tale tells the story of a chicken who wants to go to a fair but money is tight and she is asked to babysit her little sister instead. Together they play hairdressers which inspires them to set up a modelling show and charge an entry fee. They make so much money they decide to open a salon to make everyone’s feathers look beautiful — thus emphasising the importance of teamwork, creativity and responsibility, while conveying it through clever rhyming couplets. It was the story which tempted Bailey into using her administrative and business skills to find a publisher for her artistic ones. “I sat on the story for six months but then I decided to get it published and started contacting illustrators and artists,” Bailey said. “I thought I would have to go down the self-publishing route but there were far too many skills involved with that. “So, I looked for a publisher and used my grant-writing abilities to try and pick one which aligned to the project. “That’s what grant writing is all about — targeting your application — and when I stumbled on Tiny Seed Publishing, I sent off Chooky’s Salon and they accepted it.” That was followed by Magpies Four, which is also now available, with eight more slated for 2026, including Angel Bunny’s Sleep Muffin which is due out in February. The remainder will hit the shelves of Australia and the US throughout next year and 2027. Despite her previous life, which included stints at the Great Southern Development Commission, the Great Southern Regional Marketing Association, the Shire of Plantagenet, South Regional TAFE and St Joseph’s College, she was probably always going to do something artistic. She still remembers Keith Martin, a Merredin Primary School teacher, who read to the class every day and take the students on nature walks. He helped nurture her love of animals. “I had four siblings and it was thanks to me coming along that the school was able to stay open,” she said. “It had to have 10 students and I made up the number. “They were six happy years.” It was a childhood incident which inspired her tale of a Pug In A Jug, though it was actually a feral cat, and hearing a magpie click-clacking on the kitchen tiles helped her come up with Magpies Four. “I just wondered what would happen if magpies came to visit — absolute chaos,” she said. Even before she was published, she would visit schools and libraries to tell her tales, often challenging pupils to draw the characters from their imagination. “I had just turned 50 when I started writing the stories down and it’s just a compulsion,” she said. “I see something which triggers me and that’s it.” With two out and ready for Christmas stockings, 14 more in the offing and the 17th just submitted, it has not taken her long to become prolific. An animated website — created in partnership with UWA students — will be launched soon and help with promotion, though she is full of praise for her publisher which, she says, “handles everything”. She’s not one to rest on her laurels and it’s hard to believe the rhymes will stop coming. Tiny Seed Publishing will be busy for a while yet.