Richard Gauthier publishes his second collection of short stories

Zainab Al-Mehdar
Pontiac December 20, 2022
With still so much to say and write, self-published author from Otter Lake releases a new collection of short stories.
After great reviews from almost selling 300 copies, Richard Gauthier decided to jump back into writing after publishing his first collection in 2021. This series is titled The Lad from Otter Lake, Adolescent adventures, where he is 14 years old, 10 years older then when he was in the last book going to Victoria Avenue High School.
“My fans of course, liking the first book, encouraged me and I thought well where will little Ricky go now? What’s going to happen to our beloved character? So I sat down right after Christmas a year ago, and I started writing the second series, and I really worked hard,” said Gauthier.
The new collection is written in the same style with each month representing a chapter, and the same genre of historical fiction of his life based around Otter Lake, with more of the Pontiac flavour in this series, he explained. The collection is 600 pages much bigger than his first and explores themes such as bullying, teen love, gender and sexuality, teen pregnancy, body image, addiction and mental health.
“This new collection is all about experiencing things that teens have to experience and even some troubling things that teens have to go through. But luckily growing up in a small town and going to school in a community like Shawville we had fantastic teachers. So the basis of the second collection is about the teachers in his life who helped him get through the different struggles as a teen,” he said.
He dedicates the book to all his teachers that helped him during his teen years; it’s a book about learning and overcoming hardships and growing up. What surprised him was when one of his childhood teachers, Phillipe Perry who lives in Waltham, reached out to him over Facebook. “To have a high school teacher connect with me again after all the time and to support me in my initiative, even now, after so many years. It really touched me very much. It was amazing to have that support,” said Gauthier.
In each of the chapters he talks about a specific teacher, their names and their character are all based on the actual teacher, he mentioned. Writing this collection has allowed him to reflect a lot on his teen years, and for him it has been enjoyable reminiscing because even with its hardships those experiences taught him alot.
“It’s the foundation. What made us who we are, without our past, we can’t have our present and we can’t build our future. So it’s great to go back in the past especially to look at those learning events and how they helped us to become the human beings that we are today,” he said.
Because the second book also did well, and his readers enjoyed it, Gauthier might explore the idea of writing a third book. “2023 is coming around and I’m thinking every good series needs to be a trilogy, right?” he laughed and added “I’m thinking I’ll probably age the character Ricky another 10 years and by this time he will have moved to the big city.” He also added that he will tie it back to his hometown, as it is a big part of his life, and has shaped who he is.
Readers can find his book on Amazon. All the proceeds he gets he donates to his local food bank in Toronto.