When Rhode Island author Ashley Richer visited Stadium School recently, she showed students her new book, “Tyler’s Tall Tales: Chasing the Moon.”

A member of the Association of Rhode Island Authors, Richer and over 100 other published authors across the state make visits to area schools, taking part in interactive visits with students and promoting their books.

Richer showed the students her new book by projecting it onto an overhead screen as she read, and explained that it not only takes place in Rhode Island, but also contains a map so that the students can see some of the Narragansett locations and landmarks that are found throughout the story, many of which the students might recognize, such as the Newport Bridge.

Richer dedicated the book, her first, to her high school English teacher.

“My high school English teacher really inspired me to be a published author,” Richer said, explaining that she had wanted to be an author since about the fourth grade. “My teachers always said I was creative and funny, and that I should keep at it. After college, I got very sick and I made a bucket list. At the top of that list was to publish a book.”

As she read, Richer took predictions from the students as to what they thought might happen next, and who they thought Tyler might encounter as the story went on. At the conclusion of the story, she asked the students what they thought some of the major themes and lessons in the story might be. The students’ answers included a theme of teamwork, and lessons such as never give up and keep on trying, all of which were correct guesses.

As the story wrapped up, Richer spoke to the students about the writing process and the steps to becoming a published author.

“It took me almost five years to write the first draft of this book,” she said. “Then I had to fix my work, hire an editor, and really get my work to be perfect. I finally had a final draft and then I needed to hire an illustrator so that we could choose a Tyler for the book. In total it took me 10 years to publish my book.”

The illustrator for Richer’s book is also a local Rhode Islander, Ryan Maguire, and Richer showed the students many of his sketches and preliminary drawings. She also showed the students pictures of Maguire’s art studio. She told some of the unusual things that illustrators might need to do when illustrating a book.

“Ryan went out in the middle of the night and took a picture of the moon in order to get the inspiration for his illustrations for this book,” she said.

She explained that her own inspiration for one of the book’s characters, Freckles the dog, came from the dog she had while she was growing up.

Next year, Richer’s second book in the series will be coming out, “Tyler’s Tall Tales: Journey Around the World.” She has several more books in the series in draft format.

As she finished her presentation, Richer was happy to hear from a student who told her that she had inspired him to write a book.

“You never know when an idea for a book will come to you,” she said.