Magnolia's Bookstore holds many best-selling novels on its numerous shelves. The names of the hottest authors confront readers the moment they walk in the door.
But buried among the large stacks are a few books that some readers may not recognize so easily. Within the store are the works of a local treasure: Cameron Dokey.
A resident of Magnolia, Dokey has written around 30 books, and some of her recent ones have become quite popular. Members of the community may recognize her as an employee of the store, where she's worked the past four years.
Dokey grew up in Stockton, Calif., where she attended high school before embarking on an unorthodox college career. After initially thinking about becoming an archaeology major, she accepted an offer to join the acting company at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
Four years later, she decided to move to Seattle, where she earned an English degree from the University of Washington.
Dokey said she's been interested in writing from a very young age. "I probably had always thought about it," she said. "My dad was an English teacher and a philosophy teacher and also a writer. So I always sort of had the example of him writing at the end of the day.
"We'd have dinner, clean up the kitchen, then everybody had to be out of the main part of the house because that's where my dad's office was, so he would write," she added.
Originally she began writing copy for the Pacific Science Center. Dokey soon got into young adult fiction after a friend offered some help preparing writing samples.
"A lot of people who get published, I think probably have a hand-up somewhere along the way," she said. "So I started out writing nonfiction kind of stuff, but that really encouraged me to explore this fiction-writing option that had always been in the back of my mind."
Dokey's first books were released in 1994; she has been writing consistently ever since then. "I average two, maybe three titles a year," she said.
Though her writing has covered many different subjects, Dokey said she enjoys fantasy and historical fiction.
Currently, the second best-selling book at Magnolia's bookstore is Dokey's Golden, a retelling of the Rapunzel fairy tale. She has written three other books for the series, all of which were inspired by an editor.
"Do you know there's a Drew Barrymore movie called 'Ever After,' which is kind of a retelling of Cinderella?" Dokey said. "This wonderful editor I was working with, who is really good at kind of spotting trends in the population, said, 'You know what? We should start a young adult series like that film.'"
Dokey has really taken to the series; her personal favorite book is the first of these novels, The Storyteller's Daughter.
"I love writing those-I was one of those little girls who always read fairy tales and princess stories," Dokey said. "So those are tremendously fun and rewarding to write."
With all of the books that she has written, Dokey still has similar goals in mind when she sits down to pen another novel.
"I think you want your readers to trust you, and to go with whatever it is your characters are doing, even if you're kind of writing beach-blanket novels," she said. "For me, the people have to feel real to me-I have to care about them, and then hopefully I can make somebody else care about them."
About four years ago, Dokey appeared on the scene at the bookstore.
"That was when I hit this kind of dry patch; it was actually in the months right after 9/11," she said of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the East Coast. "Suddenly it became very difficult to place any kind of original work at all."
Dokey said she couldn't find many options and felt uncomfortable with the situation. Luckily, an opening at the bookstore arose right then.
"I sort of thought maybe I'd stay for a year or so; I'd stay till however long," she said. "And I had such a good time that I stayed for four years."
Though currently she only fills in on an occasional basis, Dokey said she really enjoys her interaction with other Magnolians during her time at the store, which was established in the community circa 1981.
"People would-and they still do-stop to talk to me in the grocery store," Dokey said. "Just the visibility and the good feeling about being a member of the community increased significantly, and that was one of the things that made it hard to leave."
Co-worker Heidi Stauber said that Dokey has her own little fan club in Magnolia, and the author mentioned how the bookstore holds signings for her after new material comes out.
When asked about her future, Dokey said that she and her husband have no plans on moving out of the area anytime soon.
"We're happy here," she said. "We don't have any great plans to go off-I swear."
And assessing her career up to this point, Dokey said she is excited about what is happening and content to simply keep writing.
"I'm just finishing my first adult mass-market series, so that's been really exciting," she said. "My big goal always was to be a writer, to earn my living as a writer. And so, some writers want to write the great American novel, and I suppose maybe someday I would like to.
"But to be a working writer," Dokey added, "having that be the thing I could do day in and day out, my very first choice of work, that was the thing that was most important to me."
Jesse Baumgartner is a freelance writer living in Queen Anee. He can be reached at mageditor@nwlink.com.[[In-content Ad]]
