The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Marna by Jason Hauger

Episode Date: March 18, 2026

Marna by Jason Hauger https://www.amazon.com/Marna-Jason-Hauger/dp/B0GMVJG1T8 The end of summer has arrived. David, a lonely-hearted elementary-school student, is looking for a good friend. But when he stands up to his bully Gavin, David unknowingly discovers a beautiful, magical girl, Marna, as she unfurls her beautiful butterfly wings. Marna and David soar through the air as they go on adventures, and David hopes Marna is here to stay. One day, however, Marna is discovered after she grows ill, and the doctors will not let her go. David must help save Marna and set her free, seeking help in the most unlikely source. In the end, will Marna stay, and David be able to let her go?

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Terry, amazing man on the show. We're going to talk to him at his book called Marna. Out October 15th, 2025. Jason Hogger is joining us on the show. Today we're going to talk about his books and some of the things he has going on. Welcome to the show, Jason. How are you? I'm doing fine. Thanks you for having me on the show, Chris Boss. It's a pleasure and an opportunity to be here to able to showcase my wonderful title. I just got back from the London Book Fair, and it was an amazing experience. It was the first time getting my book published, first time doing a book signing and first time in London. So it was just fantastic. Yeah, congratulations. So give us any dot com's, websites, social media, wherever you want people to find out more. about you on the interwebs. Okay, you can find me on my Patreon at Marna Adventure series. I also have a website that should be an author page ready by the end of this month. It's going to be marnaadventures.com. And then I also have GoFundMe called Help Jason Hogger animate Marna's

magical world. Give us a 30,000 overview. What's in this book, Marna? Okay. So, Marna is about a lonely boy who discovers a magical girl with butterfly wing, and he must protect her from a world that wants to cage or wonder, learning that the greatest act of friendship is sometimes letting go. And tell us about these characters. I mean, they look kind of elfish or, what's that Japanese sort of thing? Japanese anime or Japanese manga style. It's a very popular medium for the younger generation.

I've always enjoyed it as a teenager, all the way up into an adult and stuff. It's one of my favorite medias. So I just made merchandise for that for the book and stuff, right? Yes, I did. I can show you real quick. Yeah. Right here we have the nice little lovely stand here.

And that's going to go about $30 because it's not cheap to make. I wish it was, but it's very lovely. You put tea light candles. If you stuck my social media, it looks amazing. I also have, and this is what the ladies are really excited about, check this out. We have the tote bag. The tote bag. It's got all the four designs of Marna, the different states of the life, kid, teenager, adult princess, and then mother.

We also have key chains, and the key chain art design has this one in particular is the princess design, front and back is the designs on it. And then I also have the trademark logo. If you could see right there, it's the trademark logo. And I was excited to get my trademark. Just, you know, lock in the brand. Because it's more than just a storyline, but it's also a brand, of course. And I have lovely bookmarks. And the bookmarks all come with these amazing castles.

You can see right here on the merchandise. And ta-da. And this is the actual book. It's going to look like, the paperback volume. And I bookmarked one of my favorite pictures in here. And this is going to be the butterfly garden from the Henley Dolly Zoo without saying Henry Doley Zoo. But when you live in Omaha, you'll recognize it immediately just by the description alone.

Oh, wow. It's got all the merch. He's got the book and the merch. Most of the show and you have the book. Good job. We all need to merge them. I also have a screenplay and screenplay treatment that I did myself. Then I went to explore books, and then they went and did a professional touch-up.

It is done by a talented Steve Sanchet. You may know him from the Pirates of the Caribbean. If you remember the very last one, he was one of the non-speaking roles. He was one of the Contestadors. So when I had a Zoom call meeting with them, I immediately arrived. recognized him. It's like, oh, I know who he is. It's like, yeah, one of the conquistadors. So we had a great time. We shot some ideas back and forth, and then he went and just touched it up beautifully. I could see the difference between my amateur version versus his professional,

and I'm learning a lot just from looking at that. Yeah, yeah. Give us the background on this story. How did it come about? What was the development of it? Is there more the one book, et cetera, et cetera. Okay. So we're going to start decades ago when I was in the first grade. I was a little kid. My teacher gives us a creating writing project and it was only to be about one page and I was going to read it to the classroom. By the time I got done reading the story, all the girls absolutely loved the story so much. They were drawing the pictures of the butterfly girl. And then when I was done with the story, they were handing me the pictures. I had my own fan art. even back then. And I wish I had all the pictures.

I wish I had the original manuscript from 40 years ago, but that's a long time to hold on to anything. So then later on, as an adult, I went to the beautiful tropical island of Bonnare. And that's a Dutch island, 50 miles north of Venezuela, absolutely gorgeous island. So I'm walking on this tropical paradise with flowers and lush green and palm trees. And then I see monarch butterflies all over the place.

more monarch butterflies that I have seen in years. And it was just, and then the memory just came back to me. And then I was like, the story, it just came to me. And I had a journal with me. I was just going to write some poetry, maybe some songs. No, I opened it up and I started writing the story right then and there. So you can imagine sitting on the beach, you got these gentle waves just hitting the shoreline with the beautiful white sand, the boats.

in the background, the cell boats, the seagulls. It was just a beautiful backskate. It almost reminded you of a corona commercial. Oh, huh? Oh, yes. Just the best atmosphere to do any kind of writing. It's a nice escape.

And then after I got done writing the story, I went back to the States, and I read it to my test reader. My test reader is my best friend's stepdaughter. He ended up getting married to this lovely lady, and she had two kids already. One was the special needs and the younger sister was my test reader. She was

12 at the time. So I read her the story. She absolutely loved it. She really, really loved it. And then I went and I shelved the book for a while because it was just a hobby. It was just for fun, you know. And then one day I find out that my father-in-law ends up getting terminal cancer. It was in the liver, and it spread, it metastasized, and it was terminal, and it was very painful. And I was sitting at his bedside, and as therapy, I started writing the sequel. Oh, really? Yes. For me, and I'm pretty sure to work for a lot of other people, when you're going through hard times, like creating stuff, writing stories, drawing pictures, creating music.

that is a great way to help you cope with pain and loss that you might be going through. So if you're struggling, just get into a book, get into some markers or something, do something. That's my advice. Anyways, back to the story. So I started writing the sequel, and unfortunately, he passed away before the first act was finished. So then I take the same story because I know my test reader is going to love it. I read it to her. Not only that she love it, but I left her on the cliff.

hangar and she's oh my god is he going to survive does he make it i said you're just going to have to find out when i write more of my story so she was just on the edge of her seat you know wanting to know more of the story it's good then time goes by i'm writing the story and then more bad news found out that her mother ended up getting breast cancer oh boy i was like oh no not this again figured i've been writing so i've feel that this might be therapeutic to other people that might be going to things to kind of help them get their mind off the pain of reality just for a moment. Yeah.

Dive into a story and just enjoy the beauty of the moment. So I made it a goal to finish the story by the end of the year. So 150 pages later, it's almost three to five times longer than my original book. And so I read it to her. And not only that she loved it, she went and told me, hey, this needs to be a movie. This is really good. This needs to be a movie. And then I was like, oh, thank you for believing in me.

But you know what that means? I'm going to have to publish my first book. Marcy's, oh, my God, that's my favorite book. And then here we are. I started the process of getting it edited. I got it copyrighted. and two weeks later, a publisher comes ringing on my phone, and then it was Dorrance in publishing, so I decided to publish to them. And then as I'm going through the working in progress with Doran's publishing, I started scouting for artists because I wanted to pick the artists.

I want to have somebody that I know that can bring Marta to life. I have a vision, and I want to find the right person that could bring that vision to life. So I went and scouted all over my local conventions. A lot of artists were busy. I went to PlanetCon in Kansas City. A lot of artists were either too busy or they're too expensive. Then I found a lead and it took me to the site called VGen.co. And then I stumbled upon two amazing artists.

The first one was Naro Faro, and she's from Indonesia. And she does all the illustrations. So the book cover and even the back and all the illustrations in there, it's all from her. Wow. And she did an amazing job. But then I had a second artist, and she's from the UK. And she, I know her work was really good. And she said, hey, I can do this in a timely fashion.

I went through art school. I will definitely be worth the money. I'm like, okay. I was thinking, I didn't give. her the gig for the illustrations, but what can I do? Oh, yeah, I need a trademark. So she's the one who did my trademark art, art, and this right here, the art for my trademark. Oh, wow. Isn't that gorgeous? Yeah. And now you've got the book out and you're out promoting it. Oh, yes. I started off by going to my local conventions. I made paper bookmarks, and I was handing

them out all over the place. I even went to the celebrity guests and I handed them out my bookmark and then I stumbled across the lady who played Marcy from Married with children. Oh, yeah. You remember the nosy, the nosy, the nosy, yeah. Yeah, I ran to her. Absolutely lovely lady. And she was really impressed with the artwork. She liked the idea of the story. And then she advise me to check out Main Spring books. And I went and I did something kind of bold.

I went and took the bookmark and I signed it for her. He said, hold on to this because if this ever launches and this becomes really good, that bookmark's going to be super valuable because it's the first. It's before the trademark logo. It's before everything.

Yeah. So the characters in the book, I believe David is described as lonely and searching for real connection, what made you want to explore childhood loneliness in a fantasy story? Because I've personally experienced that as a child, and I'm pretty sure everybody has, or they're lonely, and they're looking for that good friend, help them along the way. Sometimes, unfortunately, when you're a lonely kid, that makes you susceptible to bullying. And I made the character stand up to his bully for the first time. And then he was rewarded by discovering an amazing

friend through Marn. Except this friend was magical and they're able to fly around and go on adventures. And he was able to show her what it's like to be a kid because she doesn't have family. She's lonely as well. So two lonely kids, they meet each other and they become the greatest the friends. And the bully seems to be the feature that unlocks the whole adventure. Why was courage the doorway into magic for this story? Courage to do the right thing is basically what it is. Because sometimes doing the right thing isn't easy.

You've got a lot of peer pressure going against you. It's like swimming against the current. But sometimes you've got to find that inner strength to help you fight against that current and do the right thing. And then in the long run, amazing things happen. Great opportunities will open before you. It's like the universe, like, here's your answer. And another great story message in the story is that the bully finally turns around

and decides to say he's sorry. And then that's where courage comes back again, the courage to be able to forgive that said bully. when he finally admits his wrong and he's willing to do the right thing. And basically being able to help him do the right thing by forgiving them and not holding on to that spite or that anger because it doesn't help you out. And besides, you can find some amazing friends. Yeah.

I mean, a very good lesson, you know, hate and anger and bitterness and revenge. You know, they do more damage to the, to us than it does to the people. me were thinking about. There's a quote that concise as that correctly I can't think of. But now, Marna has butterfly wings, which is a pretty vivid image. What does the Marna represent to you symbolically?

Is there a symbol there? Yes, in essence, Marna is about, Marna is in essence about monarch butterfly conservation. Like when I was a kid, I looked outside and my mom's flower guard,

there was Marnock butterflies everywhere. Oh, okay. You could see five butterflies in one time. Then as I grow an adult, I rarely see them. There's some years where I would never see a monarch butterfly for years. And then you start hearing the unfortunate news that they're in danger. They might be going extinct. In a way, this book helps bring awareness to the monarch butterfly because we need to protect them.

We need to conserve them for future generations to enjoy. and there are several steps that you can take. One step is making sure that you have milkweed in your yard, and if you have milkweed in the yard, do not cut it down. It might be an ugly plant, but it is essential for their caterpillars to eat that plant, pupate and become a butterfly is literally the only thing they can eat. And then as an adult,

and this also applies to a lot of other pollinating insects, like wild bees and other types of moths and butterflies. Make sure that not only you plant flowers, but you plant many varieties of flowers. So throughout the year, you have different bloom spouts in different weeks. So then they're not starving throughout the year. They have plants that they can return to in your garden year after year.

And then, of course, that's beautiful to look at. Your kids are going to love it. and appreciate just the small wonders in life. And then finally, and this is, I stress is very important, is trying not to spray the poisons and pesticides and insecticides because in the farmland, they spray poisons all over the place. In the commercial area, they cut the grounds to like a golf course, and then they spray it full of poisons.

So that's another area they can't go. So then if they go into the residential areas and they spray that too, then where else are they going to go? They really have no place to go outside of parks. And parks ain't enough to preserve these butterflies. So we have to do our park and set up these safe havens. And like the Heli Doley Zoo has what is known as a Monarch Butterfly Way Station. And of course, you can look that up to Monarch Butterfly Way Station. station.com and you will be able to find the steps you can do.

And some people can even get certified and have a nice little sign that they could put in the yard. In fact, my mother-in-law has a Monarch Butterflyway Station because I did the book. That's wonderful. Now, is Marna short for Monarch? Yes. Or a variation of it. Yeah.

Yeah, the funny thing is originally I was going to title the book Flutter by. Kind of like a play on words like Butterfly. It's called Flutterby. But then I researched the name, and then there's somebody that already is using that name. And I'm thinking, what could I call the book? Oh, yeah. I'll use the main character's name, Marna. And it just works really good.

It's short, it's simple, it's easy to remember. And then I was able to make the log line look beautiful with the lace on the bottom, the black with the polka dots near the bottom. Yeah. Orange and then the asymmetric black line on the left side of the lettering. So it has that look and feel like a monarch butterfly. Oh, cool. Now, they're David and Marna.

They're different beings, but one's basically human. The other one's a butterfly. Tell us about that. Why did you choose to show there? As a teenager, I was inspired by a lot of, of Ghibli films. And in Ghibli, there's always that magical element. And you got those slow moments in life that you just sit and pause and enjoy the beauty. Like in a Ghibli film, they might show a scene where it's just grass flowing in a field. And it's peaceful and

serene. And it just gives you and encapsulates the beauty of that world without having to explain the entire thing. You can just see it. You can feel it. And you got these grand adventures where it's a normal, mundane, boring life. And then they run into something magical, which takes them out of their comfort zone, flies them into another world, flies them into a whole new adventure. And then they just either they, sometimes they survive, they learn, they grow, they grow, as a character, and that's what I wanted to encapsulate in my stories.

With these stories, I mean, why do you like writing for children's books? What do you find is great about that target audience? I wanted to be able to write a story where anybody can enjoy, no matter how young or how old, because it's got the beauty and magic that a kid can love. However, it's got the complexity where even adults can enjoy. Yeah. Adults can enjoy. What a wonderful thing. And now there's a part in the book. We always don't want to talk about the middle and end part of novel, so I'm not sure if getting into an illness that happens in the book. Are we getting too far into the book and disclosing too much? No, it's in the back. It's in the back of the book. You know, eventually something's going to happen. Yeah, you have to have a big rescue somehow.

Do you want to flesh that out and then tell us, tease a little bit out to us in the book? and kind of how the doctors act as kind of the parents and in the maybe I don't know if they're protagonists or yeah they're kind of the doctors and the doc not doctors but the doctor and this in particular is kind of a antagonist but not in the mean kind of way because he thinks that he's doing the right thing wants to discover what makes her tick he wants to analyze her and figure out if there's a way that she can benefit mankind, but it's not benefiting her in the long run. So then, and she's got a short window of time because she needs to return back to the magic.

So that's when David has to team up with his bully and he was the magic that she gives him and the aid of few other side characters. One being Tiger Blossom and the other one being Black Lotus. and then they all team up together to rescue Marna from the head doctor. And then, of course, the story comes full circle, but I'm not going to explain it too much. You're going to have to find out yourself what happens that makes that story come full circle. I'll surprise.

So wonderful stuff for the books. And now there's, you had mentioned there might be a sequel. Is there a sequel? How does that work? anything upcoming. There is a sequel. It will be coming out later this year. I need to work a little more on the designs.

I need to get my artist working on it. But it's a process. The book is going to be called Marna Book 2, kissed by a mantis. The trilogy, when I wrote it, was so long that I have to split it up in the three parts. I have to because in order to get that small book format and being able to fit eight illustrations

in there, there's no way eight illustrations can justify that entire 154-page document. It's just not enough. It'll be too much important stuff in there. So I split up into three, and it's just going to be an amazing venture. All new characters, for those authors and creative writers that like the anagram, I try to make a character that matches one of each anagram and thrown. in the story. Just so they're not all the same. They all have

their own struggles. They all have their own misbeliefs. They all have their fears and desires. That just makes them them unique. They have their own character voice. Just stuff that you can look forward to in reading a fantasy adventure. Now,

what's in, for those people who don't know, what's in, I'm not sure for pronouncing this correctly, an eneagram? Okay. Enneagram. is basically the nine personality types. And I can explain them as I explain each character. For instance, the new protagonist in this story is Gavin the bully. So this is basically his character growth arc.

And you could see that he still has a lot of growing, even though he's friends with David and he's a lot nicer now. He's not perfect, you know, no one is. and he's still young, he's still got a lot of growth, and somewhere on the screen kind of reviews why he is the way he is at some point. You just will have to discover it as to read along. But his personality is the type 8. He's a challenger.

He likes the butt heads with people, and it tends to make him a bully, but that's what it is like for your Enneagram 8s. And then he ends up running into this mysterious girl in green. So the setup, the, the backstory for that one, or backdrop, is that he ends up getting shrunken down real small. The movie, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. Yeah. Remember that's like my way back in the day? He gets shrunken that small and he gets plunged in the world of the insects and he has to survive.

In fact, the beginning line of that book, The Kissed by a Mantis, goes like this. In the insect world, female is queen. that is your that is the opening line for that book he runs into this mysterious girl in green doesn't know that she's secretly a mantis she wants to gain his trust because she wants to lure them to where the magic is the strongest eat them and absorb his power so she can finally gain her mother's approval tea sounds like some of my relationships yeah it's kind of like a warning for for the non-readers. Watch out for the mantis.

She acts like she could be your friend, but secretly, she wants to eat you alive. I have great exes. They're wonderful. Tia is a type 2 enneagram, so she's a helper. And as a helper, she feels like she's not worthy of love. And she wants to look for that approval that her mother has never given her.

Her mother is a type 1. So the type 1 is the perfection. but she's not the nice kind of perfectionist. She's the tyrant perfectionist. Think of Mommy Dearest on steroids. Just absolutely brutal. That's a serious Joan Crawford right there. So she wants to gain her mother's approval,

and her misbelief is if she eats them, gains his power. She'll get her approval. Oh, man, eat her. literally man-eater that's why it's Daryl Hall and John Outs would say he's a man-eater

Google it Her title because she's a princess she's the known as the shade princess and her mother is the queen of shade whoa

yes and they're the ones that are most terrifying in that world even more so than than the main antagonist. Sounds like somebody's mother-in-law. Yes, a scary mother-in-law.

However, in how the book is designed, it's going to be more like the enemies to lovers, slow burn romance. So they don't fall in love right away. So the first book, it's not happening. Yeah. It's going to have to wait until the third book and see what happens. Yeah.

Came back from Thailand once with a slow burn, but that's a different story. I wrote that one. beautifully just right off the cuff. So there you go. I don't know what that means, kids, but I don't know. So anyways, also doing a pinch of a love triangle, but not enough

to make it annoying. So one of the characters that Gavin runs into is an aunt princess. This aunt princess is a type four. She's creative, but she ends up being over-emotional,

over-pity things sometimes. As a princess is, a lot of times, you know. It's the princess enneagram or like Anna Green Gables. They're the idealist. So anyways, she's surrounded by girls everywhere,

just all over the place, just one big colony of ladies everywhere. And then she sees Gavin, the first boy she's ever seen. He immediately has a crush on him. Why? First boy she's ever seen.

You know, when else you're going to find another boy? So you have that little bit of a tug between Tia trying to gain his trust in her having a crush on Gavin. So it's an interesting dynamic. Another interesting, fun-loving character. I call her Speedy, the Jumping Spider. Oh. And she's like the little kid's sister he never had. She's a type 9.

So type nines are laid back. They like the harmony and peace in the environment. They do not like drama at all. In fact, they'll do their best to diffuse any kind of drama. But when they're diffusing the drama, they end up forgetting about themselves. So they kind of forget to look within them themselves and figure out what's important for them because they're trying to people please everyone around them to make sure that everything is nice, it's kosher, there's no drama. And we can just sit back and relax without having to worry about any struggling.

Sometimes when things hit the fan, they kind of freeze up. They don't know what to do. They need that guidance. And that's what happens to her sometimes. Another little bit of her backstory is she's a jumping spider. She's an outcast from the Spider Guild because in the Spider Guild, they make all these beautiful, elaborate webs. Jumping spiders don't make webs. They just only repel off a little thin silk strand, and then they jump all over the place.

So she's the outcast. She has no friends. But when she meets Gavin, he becomes friends with her immediately, and then the two become inseparable. They're just like peas and characters. They're best friends. And she's the little sister he'd never had. She's just the cute, fun-loving character. Says the cutest things.

Sounds like it's just a wonderful book for kids and stuff. So as we wrap up the show, tell us, give us a final pitch out for people to pick up the book where they can find out more about the merchandise, websites, etc., etc. Okay, you can find my book. It's on Amazon and Barnes & Nobles. Also, through Doornson Publishing, if you want to get it direct and a lot quicker, I also have it as a Kindle for $3 for those who can't afford expensive books and stuff like that,

but there won't be pictures with it. That's the trade-off. You get the story, but you don't get the art. I also have a wonderful audio bowl as well, and that is done by the talented Lolita Corey. She had an amazing background in theater. when I scouted her out I listened to her clip and she made me laugh

and I knew she was the one to do the narration of the book. So I have it on Audubol. I want to say it's about $9. Don't quote me because they're always changing the price on the audio bowl. See, it's also available in a hardback and the hardback is absolutely beautiful.

Just the way the book looks, aesthetically the warm colors are in the front, the cool colors are in the back, and as it wraps around, The cover, it almost creates a rainbow effect on the page side of the book, not the spine, but the page side. So that is definitely worth getting. And let's see, I have the Patreon. That's Marna Adventure Series.

I do a chapter reading once a month, and I do different locations. One of the locations will be in London. So I'll have the backdrop of London reading my story. and there's all kinds of different locations I go to to really fill in the story and make it just for the kids, you know, so they can enjoy it visually and not just listening to it. I have an Instagram that you can check out, an engineer cat 7-9. So that's Ninja N-E-R-Cat-7-9 Instagram. And then my TikTok is Marner Adventure series, all one word. and you can find all kinds of fun clips through that.

I also have YouTube, an engineer, but I don't work on it as much because YouTube hasn't been nice to me. The algorithm doesn't like me. But I have a lot of success in the Instagram and the TikTok. You find it where you can. This has been wonderful to have you on, Jason. And I love that you're doing this series.

I love the background behind it that inspired the story. And it sounds like it's a great journey that you're going to be on in getting this out there and sharing with lots of people lifting the world. Thank you for coming by, Jason. We really appreciate it. Thank you as well, Chris, for giving me an opportunity to be on your show. Thank you. And order of the book, folks, where refined books are sold, it's called Marna, on October 15, 2025. And you can find a link there on the Chris Foss show and check out this website as well.

To my audience, thanks for coming by. Go to Goodreads.com for Just Chris Foss. LinkedIn.com, Fortresschus Christfoss, YouTube.com, Forteschusch, Chrisvoss. You know those crazy places. Be good to each other. Stay safe. We'll see you guys next time. You've been listening to the most amazing, intelligent podcast ever made to improve your brain and your life. Warning. Consuming too much of the Chris Walsh Show podcast can lead to people thinking you're smarter, younger, and irresistible sexy. Consume in regularly moderated amounts. Consult a doctor for any resulting brain bleed.

All right, Jason.