Gina Tüzün holds a copy of her book, “A Place Called The Tree.”
Photo by Kimberly Pittman
After competing in “Switzerland’s Got Talent” in her mid-20s, Gina Tüzün said she felt like the singing dream that was on her list as a kid had been fulfilled.
Then it was time to put her energy and passion into something she started in her early teens: Writing.
She finished her second trilogy, and that allowed her to focus on a book she titled “A Place Called The Tree.”
She hadn’t published any of her other stories, but the time was right to make that happen.
“It’s a lot more of a personal story to me than the other ones,” the Seymour native said. “Of course, it’s very fictionalized. It’s fiction. It’s a made-up story, but there was a lot of healing that happened throughout that writing process that I hadn’t expected, and that was a very nice surprise.”
She wants that for the readers, too.
“It’s very important to me because I know young people will read it, and the story deals a lot with mental health issues, so that also was a part of the personal journey throughout the writing experience,” she said. “I think that’s why I felt so connected to it, and I wanted to bring it into people’s hands.”
Tüzün finished the book in October 2021, but she then had more kids, so getting the book published was paused until this year.
She received some help while working through the self-publishing process, and “A Place Called The Tree” is set to be released Tuesday. It will be available on Amazon (amzn.to/3TanAw3) and Kindle Unlimited.
For a limited time, signed books will be available for a discounted price exclusively at the Jackson County Visitor Center in Seymour beginning Friday.
“As a thank-you to community members for their support, anyone who purchases a book will get a free gift with it,” Tüzün said.
Soon, the book will be at Barnes & Noble, and by late winter or in the spring, it will be on Audible. Plus, a special edition dust jacket hardcover format is in the works.
Tüzün said she also plans to donate copies of the mature young adult contemporary book to local libraries and high schools and hopes to make the book available other places, too.
Here’s the synopsis: Tucking a letter from an unknown “Robert” into her jacket pocket, Leah Roy gazes through the cafeteria window at the group sitting under The Tree: The choir kids, popular and rich, the two ingredients to a fabulous life. Although Leah’s life may not be as royal as those choir kids, she has claimed her territory as drama club queen. But when choir king Braden Gregory auditions for her play, her life script is about to be musically rewritten.
Tüzün said the story deals with a lot of self-identity, various types of relationships and secret identity.
“The most important message that I hope the young readers in particular will understand is that the difficulties throughout the transition where they are now and where they are going doesn’t last forever,” she said.
It’s easy to struggle as a teenager because there are hormones, angst, new emotions and experiences and a future that can seem very intimidating, she said.
“I recognize that because writing this book brought me back to all of those emotions,” Tüzün said. “For any readers struggling with mental health issues, it’s important that they see the light at the end of the tunnel and that they know they are not alone and it does get better. That’s what I really hope they take away.”
Tüzün was inspired by her hometown and high school in writing this book. Instead of Seymour High School, the school in the book is Tipton High, an ode to Tipton Street, the main thoroughfare through Seymour. The Tree is an actual tree at the school.
“I jokingly said one day in high school ‘I’m going to write a book about this tree’ because it was these kids’ holy tree, and I didn’t know what was so special about it,” she said.
Tüzün’s family is from Buffalo, New York, but she was born in Riverside, California. She said she moved a lot when she was a kid, and her family moved to Seymour when she was 11. She considers it her hometown.
After graduating from Seymour High School in 2009, she went to Ball State University in Muncie, where she studied musical theater and microbiology.
In 2012, she and her husband, Attila, moved to his home country, Switzerland. There, they started a nonprofit organization to support musical culture.
They built a rockabilly music and classic car festival from the ground up, and today, Route 66 Aarburg is one of the biggest festivals of that genre in Europe.
“We knew we needed to have something to allow us to be able to travel back and forth. That was really important being from two different countries. Family is really important to us, so we had to figure something out,” Gina said. “As soon as we got there, we did it. We had a few months to prepare, and it was really successful. It was so well received, people really, really loved it and it was such a good time, and then it just grew from there.”
The Tüzüns also organize another festival the same weekend at another venue, plus one in May and a newer one in June.
Living in Seymour since September, the couple already has received approval to start a rock ‘n’ roll festival and classic car show here. Rock This Town will be May 3, 4 and 5, 2024.
“We have some Swiss family and other people who have been with us since the beginning. It has grown so much in Switzerland that they take care of a lot of things so that we can now be creative in other areas,” Gina said.
While that continues to be her passion, Gina is excited to dive into one of her other longtime interests: Writing.
She wrote a fantasy adventure trilogy in her teens and then fell into the new adult genre with more romance and realistic stories.
Then starting the young adult book “A Place Called The Tree,” she said she didn’t ever expect to get involved in that genre.
“I wanted to enter into some contest in my early 20s, and that’s when I started actually writing this book because I started writing a bunch of short stories and I noticed there was a common theme between all of the stories,” she said. “When you’re a writer, a lot comes out of your subconscious and you realize writing can actually be quite healing, so let me put these stories together and see if I can have a book here, and it became what it is.”
Now with her first book published, Gina said she’s proud of it because of the hope that’s in it.
“When a young reader does read it, I don’t like sad endings, I like to leave readers with hope, especially at that age, that they can take something positive away from it,” she said.
Continuing with The Tree series, she said the sequel, “Letters in Mississippi,” is mostly written and needs to be edited.
“The way ‘A Place Called The Tree” leaves off, it would make for an interesting sequel to see it from another main character’s perspective,” she said, referring to Braden. “I like that character. He’s very interesting and unique, so he’ll be a great protagonist for his own story.”
Gina said she has three books planned for the series, but there could be more.
She also connects with young people through a program on her website, ginamorosey.com, called Nerd Squad Revolution. There, people can sign up for her newsletter and submit their creative stories or projects, which she promotes in picking a Nerd of the Month.
“They can win prizes, merchandise, a free copy of the book,” she said. “I do a lot of fun giveaways like that.”