Shelter: Lost and Found HC

Shelter: Lost & Found by award-winning local author and illustrator R.A. Conroy is a wildly entertaining, fictional story based on the author’s real life experiences working at a struggling animal shelter in urban New Jersey during the topsy turvy 1970s.

Readers race breathlessly after runaway teen Peggy Dillan, as she flees a terrifying past nipping at her heels, skidding to a stop when she crosses paths with a dog - tormented by local hoods. Peggy now faces a choice; either keep running and save herself - or save the dog.

Stumbling on the Farroway Animal Shelter, Peggy is recruited by the charming warden to join his hilariously eccentric and devoted crew, and then thrust onto a roller-coaster learning curve, quaking under a 100 year-old, fractured SPCA system! All at a time that mirrors today in nearly every way - minus today’s conveniences of personal computers, cell phones, the internet, or even cable TV!

Facing impossible odds, Peggy and the crew work within, between, under and around the scant and outdated laws to give the equally compelling animal characters dumped in their charge a second chance at life. While juggling to keep the place from falling apart, this quirky group of misfits attempts to change the world at large by changing the way we view and treat our animals––and each other, here and now...one corner at a time.

A graduate of New York Universityʼs Tisch School of the Arts, author/illustrator R.A. Conroy grew up both in Pennsylvania dairy country and urban New Jersey, juggling artistic pursuits with her love of nature and animals.

Performing in regional and Off-Broadway productions by night with the likes of Nathan Lane and Ralph Bellamy, Ms. Conroy also worked as a nurse in animal hospitals, an animal control officer in an animal shelter, and a popular lecturer at Turtle Back Zoo in New Jersey and The Bronx Zoo in New York, promoting ecology and wildlife conservation, by day.

Presenting educational out-reach programs took Ms. Conroy into nursing homes, prisons, and camps for the physically and mentally disabled, where she began documenting her experiences and the healing power of the human/animal bond.

On a mission to use art and education to promote animal welfare and social change, Ms Conroy enrolled in NYUʼs film program, writing and directing ten short films featuring animal issues. Ms. Conroyʼs thesis film, SHELTER, won multiple awards: Best Film & First Place Narrative - NJ Film Festival, Best in Festival - the Thomas A. Edison Film Festival, The IAC Gold Seal - London, and the Arthur B. Chisholm Humanitarian Award.

An NEA/AFI National Writing Competition winner, Ms. Conroy wrote and directed DADDYʼS GIRL, a short film starring a 12 year-old, main-streamed student with Down Syndrome, winning: a CINE Gold Eagle, a Gold Medal - New York Festival International, Best Short Film - Santa Clarita International Family Film Festival, and a second Humanitarian Award - from ARC of Livingston, NJ.

Recruited by top film studios like The Walt Disney Company and Warner Bros., Ms. Conroy worked as an assistant animator and story artist. In 2006 she wrote the short film THE BALLAD OF NESSIE with directors Stevie Wermers-Skelton and Kevin Deters; a heartfelt message of hope for sensitive souls of every age! It is also a Golden Book, under the collective pseudonym: Kieran Lachlan.

With the publication of her novel SHELTER--Lost and Found, Ms. Conroy returns to her roots, hoping to help animal shelters and child abuse centers in need, with donations made from percentages of sales of her own works.

Meet Ms. Conroy at Pop's Culture Shoppe's "Wellsboro Comic Con" in August 2022 where she will be a presenter and speaker.

588 pages HC (Hard Cover)