Maew is just a stray Siamese cat living behind a Thai restaurant in Pittsburgh, but he’s got big dreams to find a forever home. He dons his black and gold scarf and goes on the journey of a lifetime, meeting some birds in a tree, a fish in the Ohio River and many other Steel City natives along the way.

When author Rose Bruno Bailey got the idea for her children’s book, Maew’s Home Journey, she was walking down a Mt. Lebanon street during a time of uncertainty—she felt she had aged out of her dancing career, but didn’t know what to do next. She saw a cat run up a tree with a family of birds in it and thought, “That’s like a children’s book.” Then she filed the memory away, not to resurface until more than a decade later, when she had become a writer.

“Maew’s journey is tied into my own life, really,” said Bruno Bailey. “It’s tied in to the fact that we ended up moving all over the place.” From Cleveland, she and her husband, James, moved to Mt. Lebanon after their wedding in the late ’90s, moved to Connecticut in 2005 and have since lived in New York City, Los Angeles and Houston, her current home.

Bruno Bailey started writing poetry when she lived in Connecticut. Her first poetry book was published in 2015, Camellia in Snow, and she started writing for magazines in 2016, including VegWorld Magazine, West Hollywood magazine WEHOville, and four blog contributions to Mt. Lebanon Magazine.

Maew’s Home Journey is available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.