About The Author

Lia Gladstone’s creative activism takes many forms. She is a published poet and playwright of wildly versatile subjects.  

Lia has written more than twenty plays, with numerous productions. A selection includes: This Land, stories from migrants at the US/Mexico border, available for viewing on Vimeo. Burn: I Am My Father’s Fire, written in collaboration with an Afghan Fulbright student. All The Pretty Women received a Puffin Playwrighting award and was published by Rain City Press, Seattle. Children of the Far Far Away and Tango at the Hotel Santiago were featured in the San Francisco Fringe and Solo Mio Festivals. Anita in Swingville was a finalist in New York University’s Fusion Film Festival. 

Her documentary film, A Tale of Two Bridges, has been seen on public television and is archived with the Oregon Historical Society. She has won the National American Pen Women Award for Poetry twice. In 2009-10, she was Professor of English and Drama at American University in Kabul, Afghanistan. She holds an MFA in Playwrighting and Screenwriting from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.

This is her first children’s book.

Kathy Dotson was drawn to Northern California’s Nevada City when she took a summer camp job after graduating college at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She fell in love with the town’s majestic trees and magical river and knew she had found a new hometown. 

Kathy’s call to activism ignited in 2000 when she began her position as the RiverPeople Director at the South Yuba River Citizens League (SYRCL), an organization that protects the Yuba Watershed. While at SYRCL, Kathy co-founded the Wild and Scenic Film Festival, one of the largest environmental events of its kind. She now is a graphic designer and illustrator, working with a variety of print and web clients locally, regionally and nationally. 

Because she loves music and fitness, Kathy also teaches a fierce indoor cycling class at the South Yuba Club. Kathy and her husband, Brett, still reside in Nevada City and they share their love of the outdoors and music with their two daughters, Roxy and Scarlet. They also teach them to always stand up for the things they believe in.

The Story Of Bella Blue is not just about one special tree. For many of us she represents and is symbolic of what we desire for our planet for the next generations and beyond.

One of the Kickstarter supporters of Bella Blue wrote to us about a beautiful tree being threatened in the center of the California town of  Pacific Grove. How many times is this story being repeated across our planet? We imagine this website as a forum for stories  about  preserving and honoring the trees and forests of our beautiful world. 

In the mid 1990’s, Lia lived on the Hawaiian island of Molokai. She noticed dump trucks driving the main road on the island headed to its only dock carrying huge coconut palms and learned they were being dug up on Molokai to be shipped to the other more touristy islands to decorate the big tourist hotels. 

In those days she couldn’t find any kids books about this beautiful island for the children in her life so she decided to write one.  

The Mo’o is about a mythical dragon native to Hawaii  who takes the form of whatever suits it on any particular day. In the story Lia tells, the Mo’o’s current project is to save the coconut palms of Molokai. 

Unable to find an illustrator and publisher, Lia put the book away on a virtual shelf and hadn't really thought about it until now.

The question she first posed when she began the Bella Blue project: "Is one tree important?" continues to be a guiding light and we're happy to announce that the story of Mo'o is currently with an illustrator.