The Krooked Cowboy

About the Book

Shawn Brush was born with morquio disease, one of the causes of dwarfism. He loves life, but rarely has a pain-free day. “I say this,” says Shawn, who is 38, “not to evoke any sympathy or even empathy. “Being a little person is not being a mini-you,” he says. “I am not just a regular, normal person in the body half the size of an average-sized person. “Being small is not a regular life from a lower-to-the-ground perspective. “It is not being a man in a child’s body,” says Shawn. In fact, it is quite the opposite. Shawn is a young man living in an old man’s body. When he was in his mid-20s a doctor told him he had the bones of an 85-year-old! “Don’t ever think I wouldn’t have liked to be a strapping six-footer with a wife, kids, job. But I am happy in the body I am in’’ Shawn is a singer-songwriter. He’s released 11 CDs in the past 15 years, many of them showcasing his own compositions. Shawn has a number of goals. One is to go on tour, but that may never happen. His health and energy limit him. He finds it difficult to play two nights in a row – even sleeping in his own bed each night. Another is to be independent – busking in 2007 took him closer to that goal. Yet another is to have others read his story and be inspired to reach their full potential. This book could achieve that!

About the Author

John Farrington, a journalist for 50 years, has published several books in co-operation with Trafford. Starting in at his hometown weekly in Crewe, Cheshire, in July 1958, he worked at several English newspapers before emigrating to Canada in 1965. He has been Managing Editor at several Canadian daily newspapers, including Kirkland Lake, Peterborough, Sarnia, Lethbridge and Sudbury and Publisher and General Manager at daily newspapers in Nanaimo, Timmins and Cornwall and the Multicom group in Toronto. He was National Editorial Consultant for Thomson Newspapers 1980-82 and was Northern Ontario Journalist of the Year in 1990. He collaborated with Stompin’ Tom Connors on his Number 1 autobiography and currently operates his own company, farringtonmedia, publishing. editing and writing books. He produces a quarterly in-flight magazine for Air Creebec, serving the Cree communities in the James Bay and Hudson Bay area of Ontario and Quebec. He is also an editorial consultant to a travel magazine produced for the Ontario government. In cooperation with Trafford he created Smarten Up (Create a Smart Community) with Dr. Sylvie Albert in 2003; The Smilin’ Johnnie story Eight Miles North and One Mile East of Wroxton in 2006, and in 2007 the life story of Hee Haw star, Gordie Tapp, What’s On Tapp? He lives in Oakville, Ontario.