Teri Peluso has surrounded herself with words and books her entire life. As a child she would read Nancy Drew Mysteries in bed at night by flashlight. Books ignite her imagination, fill her with questions, find answers, and leave her wondering about what’s next? What’s possible? What’s real? What if?
Teri’s first job in publishing in 1974 was with Macmillan Publishers’ book club division (now Macmillan Readers). In 1981 she went to work for two entrepreneurs from Canada, who four years earlier had left the frigid north for the sun-drenched south, to start their own publishing company.
For over 32 years in the trenches of publishing with Health Communications (HCI Books), Teri filled a variety of positions, including as co-author and editor of nine compilations in the phenomenal Chicken Soup for the Soul series.
In 2008 Teri founded Virtual Office Assistance Professionals (VOAPROS.com) and began sharing her experience in business and publishing to help others realize their potential.
Covid Orphans is her first novel.
A Word From the Author
I’ve described Covid Orphans as a work of Aspirational Fiction. That is not a genre or subject category you’ll find on Amazon or in your library’s cataloging system. I found nothing to accurately describe how I feel about this book, so I coined a new phrase. Webster defines “aspiration” as a strong desire to achieve something high or great. One may interpret that as selfish or narcissistic, but I don’t. By throwing this stone (my book) into the pond (all titles published) I hope to start a ripple. A ripple that gets readers thinking. To motivate a few to be more, do more, and to aspire to achieve something greater than themselves.
I had the characters you’ll meet in Covid Orphans developing in my imagination for years. Now and then I would try to work them into an interesting narrative. Nothing gelled until early in 2022 after I caught an investigative report from a Tampa Bay, Florida news broadcast. It was about kids sleeping on couches of foster care offices and in cars in the parking lots. The coverage revealed a system that historically struggled with a shortage of qualified foster parents and an overabundance of kids in need. It was now collapsing under the ravages of Covid-19.
In Covid Orphans I use the Florida Guardian Ad Litem (GAL) program to move my fictitious narrative forward. GAL is an actual program, established by the courts in Florida in 1980. In Fiscal Year 2019-20, GAL represented an average of 23,876 children and certified 2,016 new volunteers. At that time there were 21 local programs in the State of Florida. They do great work, but the need is always greater than the resources available.
In the United States, the CDC only records deaths from Covid-19 and not the survivors left behind. Two years into the pandemic, in March 2022 the Imperial College of London’s Covid-19 orphanhood calculator estimated that globally more than 7 million children have lost a primary or secondary caregiver as a result of Covid-19. Add to that number, the children who meet one (or more) of the dozen metrics used to define “at-risk” and it’s clear that our social safety nets, no matter the country, will be challenged by the need.
In Covid Orphans I employ the century-old concept of Intentional Community (IC). ICs take on many forms; a kibbutz in Israel, what some may fondly recall as a hippie commune, or an ecologically balanced, self-sustaining community. In Covid Orphans I offer a slightly different take on the concept of International Community. I present it more as a lifeboat, where a community sustained by private and public partnerships, supported by kind, generous people, rally around children to nurture, love, and keep them safe when their parents can no longer do so.
It’s a daunting challenge, to do more, to be something greater than ourselves. Aspirational, to be sure . . . but, what if ?