What do a pandemic, a broken sewing machine, and a pile of chopped-up black t-shirts have in common? They're where Curtis and Fergus were born.

Dee Nichols is a union camera operator who has spent his career behind the lens for some of the biggest names in music and film. He's also — somewhat unexpectedly, even to himself — a children's author. During the pandemic, with a tour to 14 countries canceled five days before departure, Dee sat down with a sewing machine he didn't know how to use and started making bears from his own clothing. A friend told him if he wrote a story about them, he could probably sell them. He'd never written a long-form story before. He did it anyway.

What emerged was the world of the Scaredy Bears — Curtis and Fergus, two very different bears living in the Big Woods, whose friendship is at the heart of everything. Curtis, who seems to know everything and worries about nothing. Fergus, who worries about everything and seems to know nothing. And beneath all of it, a quiet question Dee has been sitting with for a long time: what does Home really mean?

In this conversation, Dee talks about the Ohio farm country that shaped his storytelling instincts, the brother he lost in 1994 whose memory lives on in the Curtis and Fergus relationship, the Cherokee grandmother he barely knew but never forgot, and what it means to take the parts of yourself you're least proud of and put them in the mouths of little bears.

This one is for the kids. And it's absolutely for the rest of us too.

StorySessions™ — where your story matters.

Connect with Dee

• Website: scaredybears.com
• Instagram: @curtisandfergusthescaredybears
• Curtis and Fergus and the Sleuth of the New-New on Amazon — link at scaredybears.com
• Audible: available now for the first book

Connect with StorySessions™

• Website: storysessions.live
• Instagram: @storysessions_thepodcast
• W Brand Publishing: @wbrandpub
• Editor/Producer: @donahuecreates