BURKE — It’s been a long road recovering from a stroke she survived eight years ago, but Jan Burl has been getting a little help from a scaly friend for the last leg of it.

The Burke resident will become a published author in short time, with the first book of a planned children’s series, “Tippy’s New Friend,” releasing on Oct. 13 under her pen name, jsburl.

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Going on adventures

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The titular dog Tippy, inspired by Burl’s dog of the same name, will be joined by her owner Lana, a history teacher at the local junior high in New Hampshire, where the book is set.

But their guide is a fantastical white dragon named Seren.

“Any story has to have a dragon,” Burl said with a laugh. “It’s fun to mix the fantasy in with the real life, because kids are more apt to listen to something like that.”

This initial entry focuses on the meeting of these travelers as well as giving a taste of the journeys to come, as Tippy and Lana go on a soaring flight on Seren’s back.

Future installments will see the trio visit friends all over the country and world, exploring the natural beauty and sights that the Earth has to offer.

“The inspiration came from when my children were in elementary school,” Burl said. “I would go in to read stories, and I had a series of books from Walt Disney, with the Disney characters going to different countries and finding out about them, and the kids loved it.”

After the first book releases in October, available from several major retailers like Amazon, Barnes and Noble and more, the second is expected to release around mid-2024 and will see the trio visit a friend of Lana’s in California.

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Part of the recovery

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Following her stroke, Burl was left with huge changes in her day-to-day life, struggling to walk and dealing with aphasia, which is trouble processing speech.

“I had the stroke, which literally wiped out all my, as the doctor said, prime real estate,” Burl said.

A year after the stroke, Burl said, she returned to substitute teaching at Northern Adirondack Central School, with the students’ support.

“They became my cheering crowd; for them, I pushed and pushed,” Burl said. “It helped my recovery so much, because they kept pushing me to talk more.”

But when the COVID-19 pandemic saw her laid off, she became bored of the monotony.

“I can’t sit still, and it drove me nuts, so I just kept pushing myself,” Burl said. “The pain is beyond what I can explain to anybody. It’s something I deal with every day.”

Eventually, following her daughter’s encouragement, she went back to school in October 2021, enrolling in Southern New Hampshire University to go for her Master’s Degree in English and creative writing with a focus on poetry, areas of writing she had always had interest in.

“(Before the stroke) my focus was on everybody else, to help everybody else reach their dreams; after the stroke, I couldn’t farm anymore, I couldn’t help people the way I had been, so I started looking at me,” Burl said. “Going back to school for creative writing, it all fit in because it was something for me, but I’m turning it into something for others.”

It was a rewarding endeavor, but not without its challenges.

“The first two semesters, I’d write an essay or write a paper, and five minutes later not remember what I wrote,” Burl said.

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Writing, publishing

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She graduated summa cum laude this past February, but it was during her time in school that the plan for the Tippy series came to be.

“I entered a paper into the Halloween writing competition, and it wasn’t chosen, but it was the start of ‘Tippy’s New Friend,'” Burl said. “I re-engineered it and remade it, and I submitted it into one of my classes. It was edited by two people who actually gave me some wonderful ideas.”

Then came submitting it to her publisher, Austin Macauley Publishers, around August 2022. The publisher quickly let Burl know they were interested.

And while hearing that felt good, more recently learning the finalized publication date made the situation that much more real.

“It’s exciting, and anything that’s exciting keeps your spirits lifted,” Burl said. “The area in my brain that was ‘deleted’ so to speak was the place that sends out the happy juice, so I have to take medication to stay up, but when you have something good happen, it’s amazing; It makes the day worthwhile.”

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“There can be hope”

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The whole journey from the stroke, through school to the upcoming release of the book has been taxing to be sure, but has also left her more determined than before.

“I became a motivational speaker, because I have gone through this journey and beaten what the doctors said I was supposed to have; I wasn’t supposed to ever really be a functioning member of society again,” Burl said. “I kept pushing, the doctors had written me off, but I didn’t write myself off.”

She added that, more than anything, people who have suffered injuries like hers need encouragement and belief from the people in their lives.

“I want so much to let people know, who either are or know somebody with a traumatic brain injury, that there can be hope beyond what the doctors say.”