What if a book could bring generations together through music, memory, and storytelling?
In this episode of Plot Twist Radio, I sit down with author and TLC Book Design founder Tamara Dever to talk about her uniquely interactive children’s book, The Day We Found Yesterday—a nostalgic, music-filled experience packed with hidden Easter eggs, visual puns, and even real celebrity cameos.
Tami shares how her love of 70s and 80s music inspired not only this book, but an entire creative journey—from designing books for authors to becoming one herself. We dive into her writing process, the challenges of crafting a meaningful children’s story, and how she turned a simple idea into a multi-layered, interactive reading experience.
We also explore:
- Why 80s music continues to resonate across generations
- How storytelling can connect grandparents and grandchildren
- The behind-the-scenes process of securing celebrity cameos (including Robert Plant!)
- The reality of writing, revising, and finally finishing a book
- How creativity, nostalgia, and music intersect in powerful ways
If you love 80s music, writing, publishing, or creative storytelling—this episode is for you.
🎶 Plus: You’ll never look at a children’s book the same way again.
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Welcome to Plot Twist Radio, the show where creativity,
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storytelling, and the unpredictable path of the
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creative life all collide. I'm your host Aaron Egnatz.
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There's something powerful about the music that shapes us, the
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songs that define our memories, the lyrics that somehow say
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exactly what we're feeling even decades later.
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Today's guest has taken that magic and turned it into
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something truly unique. Tammy Dever is the founder of
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TLC Book Design, a six time author, and a self-proclaimed
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80s music enthusiast who has built an entire creative world
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around nostalgia, storytelling and connection.
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Her latest book, The Day We Found Yesterday, is more than
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just a children's book. It's an interactive, music
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filled experience designed to bring generations together
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through shared stories, hidden Easter eggs, and a love of the
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unforgettable sounds of the 80s. In this episode, we dive into
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her Unexpected Journey into authorship, the creative process
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behind building a book packed with visual puns and musical
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references, and the incredible story of how she secured real
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celebrity cameos, including legends like Robert Plant,
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inside her illustrations. We also talk about the deeper
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heart behind her work, preserving memories, bridging
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generational gaps, and reminding us why storytelling, whether
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through books or music, matters so much.
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So if you're an 80s music lover, a creative spirit, or someone
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who believes stories have the power to connect us across time,
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this one's for you. Hello and welcome to the show.
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Before we get started, can you tell the audience a little bit
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about yourself? Hi Erin, thanks so much for
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having me. I'm Tammy Dever.
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I am the owner and founder of TLC Book Design.
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We've been around for over 30 years, which is kind of weird to
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say, but I'm also proud of it. Also an author 6 times over,
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which is something I never thought I'd ever say.
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He's music lover, 80's pop culture lover.
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Listeners can't see this, but you can see a little bit of the
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pop cultured stuff around me in my office is kind of a Gen.
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X treasure trove. Yes, I love it.
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I'm I'm an 80s fan myself. I like a Durani at heart.
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I just had Jennifer Kahan on who is the wife of David Kahan.
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So that was pretty cool from Depeche Mode and I think I have
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Ricky Rocket coming up. So I'm an 80s girl through and
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through. Of it, we could talk for hours.
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Absolutely. So for listeners meeting you for
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the first time, how did you go from book designer to creating
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such a uniquely interactive children's book?
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Some people think that that would be just a natural thing
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because I designed books and coach authors for a living, but
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I never saw myself on the other end of that.
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I knew how to make it all work, but I never saw myself as a
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writer, publisher. And honestly, one night I was
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going to bed and I heard God say create and baby book for
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authors. I was like, excuse me, what?
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That's bizarre, but kind of a cool idea.
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And a few months later, my best friend who also works with me,
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she and I published our first book, which is my publishing
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journey. And it is truly like a baby book
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for authors to learn the process and journal through the process.
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So they have a memento. And that kind of started
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everything. My latest four books, I guess,
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are all these music related seventies, 80s music quiz books.
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And now my new one, The Day We Found Yesterday is a children's
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book for Gen. X.
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So you don't really have to have kids to enjoy it, but kids would
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enjoy it too. Absolutely.
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I did enjoy it when you sent me over a copy, I was like, yeah,
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this is my kind of book. I love it.
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So at what moment did the day we found yesterday they stop being
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an idea and become a You have to make this project.
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I wish I could remember what started the project, honestly.
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You know, everybody wants to know and I like, I'd like to
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know too. My brain works in lyrics and in
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song titles and in band titles and puns and I just, I can't
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stop it. So I had created 22 book series
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called Ultimate Mixtape and their music quiz books and
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they're super fun. So my brain was already going
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there and for whatever reason I started thinking, I don't know
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if I thought children's book first or just how fun it would
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be to hide visual puns in a book.
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And that started out as wow, I've got this really cool idea.
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It could be a cool children's book.
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And I want the illustrations to be just jam packed with stuff
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and a dove that's crying for Princess when doves cry and some
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shoes with the word goody below it.
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You know, just lots of puns. And I thought gosh, I can't pull
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this off if I don't have a good story to go with it.
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So the idea I think came first in the story.
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The story was torture. It took like 4 years for me to
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actually write this 32 page children's book.
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You'd think that would just come out, but honing it is a crazy
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process. And and I knew if the story
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wasn't good, the book wouldn't sell.
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So just kind of evolved by I started out writing in my
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Trapper Keeper. Really.
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And that turned into Google Docs because, you know, we got to
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share things more easily than mailing my trap or keeper to my
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illustrator. Yes, absolutely.
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You the concept, did it start as like music or did it start more
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of like a nostalgia typeface? I live in the 80s music world,
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so it was definitely a music thing.
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That's where my expertise, if you will, is.
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So I always wanted it to be music, but I want to keep the
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80s alive. And his music is so diverse,
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it's so free. It's so different than the stuff
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that's out now. And it speaks loudly.
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The genius of it, even the silly songs are genius in ways.
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And the genius of it speaks so loudly because even kids these
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days love 80s music, and they have 80s songs on their
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playlists. And I thought, wow, you know,
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we've got to keep make sure this doesn't die.
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So part of my job is to just share this music between
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generations. And the story itself really
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focuses on shared stories between the grandparents and the
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grandchildren. And I treasure that relationship
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with my late grandma, especially, and my grandparents.
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I didn't know my grandma on the other side.
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I barely knew my grandfather on my dad's side.
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My grandfather on my mom's side passed away when I was in high
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school. So my grandmother there, she she
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was the one that I could learn stories from.
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And to be able to share stories with grandparents is something
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that I don't know that grandkids understand how what a big deal
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that is and how important that is not only for the grandparent
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to share stories, but for the kid, the grandkids to share
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stories with the grandparents. And and so reading this story
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together and a grandparent like giggling at something and the
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grandchild is like, what's so funny, grandma?
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And for her to say, oh, well, do you see that, that Dove that's
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crying? Well, there was a song called
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when Dove's cry that was really popular and I loved it in high
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school. And and now you're sharing
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stories inadvertently and the grant and it's like, we should
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play that song. Let's see if you know it.
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Do you like it? And then to take that a step
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further and have that grandparent say, listen, what's
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a song that you like today? We love to share our stories,
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but we also have to listen. And I want to nurture that in
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addition to the whole 80s music thing.
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Absolutely. You you bring up a really good
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point because I lost my grandmother last year.
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And as I was thinking back to all of our conversations, I
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learned so much from her. I got a lot of my taste from
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her. She was more of the eccentric
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one, way more than my parents were.
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And, you know, we just connected and you don't realize it until a
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lot of times it's too late. How much of an impact they had
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on you? It's so true.
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I cherish, I cherish some memories and I'm grateful She
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wrote a little booklet with a few photographs with the help of
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my aunt and left it for all of us and just memories of when she
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was young and I treasure that it.
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Nothing more valuable than the hand me downs and the messages
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from those that have left us. So we'll cut and get away from
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that before we end up both crying.
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So kids today grow up with unlimited access to music, but
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like you pointed out, the music today is just not as interesting
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and the 80s really have that spark.
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Even my children who are, you know, 12/13/14 they love. 80s
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music. That they couldn't tell you what
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was out right now. Like they my son is all into the
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Hard Rock, the heavy metal tight from the 80s while my daughter,
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I drag her to my Duran Duran shows and she loves it even
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though she says she doesn't. What do you think it is about
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the 80s specifically? I don't know if we can ever
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pinpoint it exactly, but things were new.
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I'm a keyboard player and all this electronic stuff was
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starting to come out. Things were also still analog.
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I mean they were still recording on tape and there's just
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something about that. It's raw, it's genuine.
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There's no auto tune. It was this time where you went
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from analog to digital stuff, but not.
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I wish I could even explain it. There were so many things
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happening. We had rock, we had disco, we
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had punk, we had rap, We have had new wave and pop and it was
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all just music. Like it was all in the same
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radio station so you had no idea what was coming next.
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We didn't just stream what we wanted, we listened to the radio
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and we shared that experience like we're all listening to the
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radio and then to MTV and I didn't.
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And we bought the albums and we bought the cassettes.
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We joined the BMG and Columbia House record clubs and there was
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something for everybody out there.
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And there may be that now, but everything to me sounds the same
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now. And I always wonder, like, can
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that person really sing or was that digitized?
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I don't know, but the people back then could sing, and if
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they didn't sing, Milli Vanilli could dance their butts off.
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So there is that. Yes, it's so true.
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So let's kind of pivot to your writing process.
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What is that like? Oh man, my writing process is
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kind of a brain dump. I just, I get an idea and I
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start writing something and just see where it's going to go.
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I have I have ideas for about 8 other books sitting there.
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I don't know that they'll ever come to fruition and it's OK.
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But when I have an idea, I'll start it.
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I'll even start some chapters if I have that.
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Like I'm a very theme oriented person.
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So my, my quiz books, I'll have theme chapters.
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I'll start writing things down, which is a little bit why I
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struggled with the day we found yesterday because there aren't
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chapters that aren't themes. It's a story.
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You can only, gosh, I mean, you really need to keep a children's
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book under 1000 words. And these days they'd even say
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500 words. Well, I'm way closer to 1000,
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but I started out with three or 4000 and took me years to hone
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that and pair it down. And I would just, I would shell
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it and say, this is ridiculous. I'm not a children's book
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writer. This is not going to happen.
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And then I get it back out. And certain people in certain
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instances would inspire me to bring it up again.
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And I finally, like a year ago, so I released the book in
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September last year of 2025. And the year before that, about
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about that time, I finally got it out and I said, I'm going to
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do this. I had encouragement from several
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people, including clients, who said, I think you need to do
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this. So I did and I I got the story
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to where I was pretty much OK with it, but I still knew it
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wasn't perfect. I'm a perfectionist and I got
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the rough illustrations from my illustrator.
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I lost my mind, like you must be kidding, this is amazing.
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And I instantly did a little Wayne's World thing where I was
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like, I'm not worthy, I'm not worthy.
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And it inspired me to change my story again, Not the whole
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thing, but that that's what inspired me to finish the story
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and go now. Now the story's worthy of the
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rest of the book. And I don't know if other
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authors have felt that way, but it was an amazing thing for me
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to go wowed like, this is coming to life and my story's not worth
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it. Then I need to fix that because
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there's no turning back now. You're in the thick of it,
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right? So how do you even like, how did
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you get the cameos, the celebrity cameos?
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Because that is very, very interesting to me.
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Yes, so there are 9 celebrities being in plain sight in the
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illustrations of my book. I thought this was going to be a
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like is a really big deal for me.
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What I realized since I published is nobody understands
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that you have to have written permission for from these people
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for them to appear in your illustrations.
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So other people are like, Oh yeah, that's cool.
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I'm like, no, you have no idea how cool it is.
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That was one of these. I rarely dream big moments, but
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I was going to dream big and thought, gosh, what it it wasn't
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planned ahead of time. We started doing the
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illustrations and we thought, gosh, what if we had, what if we
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had musicians as some of the shop owners in the story?
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Like, well, that'd be cool. Like, OK, I'm going to try tell
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our kids all the time. If if it's always a no, if you
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don't try. So I spent so much time last
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year finding managers and publicists of the people that I
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thought would be good in my book.
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I had a makeshift spreadsheet because I'm allergic to
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spreadsheets. Everybody who knows me knows
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this. So I I just had lists of who
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would be good. And every person has to have a
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purpose. I didn't just want to slap them
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in there. I wanted them to have a purpose,
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whether it was a nod to their song or a reason that they were
00:14:23
in that spot. And the very first musician who
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said yes to me was Robert Plant. Like Led Zeppelin's Robert
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Plant, I screamed. I couldn't even believe.
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I'm like, my gosh. And if I thought if Robert
00:14:37
planted and it's everybody else is going to say yes because he's
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amazing. And he had a song in the 80s
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called Big Log. So I have him sitting on a big
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log around a campfire. So those are the kind of nods.
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I've been in touch with Martha Quinn, original DJ from MTV.
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She endorsed one of my other books.
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And so I reached out to her and she said, yes, I'll have a
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cameo. She actually has two cameos in
00:15:02
the book and she endorsed my book, which is super cool.
00:15:06
Oh yeah. One day I reached out and said,
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hey, do you think the other BJ's would say yes to having like a
00:15:13
reunion in my book? And she thought that would be a
00:15:16
good thing. The next morning she emailed me
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and said, hey, do you mind if I reach out to them?
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I'm like, go for it. That's fantastic.
00:15:24
So they're in there. Corey Hart has always been one
00:15:28
of my favorites and he's in my book.
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So I did a big screen fest when that happened and there are a
00:15:36
few that said no or didn't get back to me that I still am kind
00:15:40
of crushed over. Really wanted Bret Michaels to
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be sitting in the Doctor's office holding a thorny rose
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with blood coming out of his finger.
00:15:48
And we had him drawn in and ready to go up until the last
00:15:53
week. Had to replace him with a just a
00:15:56
generic person and nobody else would know.
00:15:59
But, you know, I'm like, He looks so cool sitting in the
00:16:03
waiting room. I bet that would be cool though.
00:16:05
Oh yeah, I thought that was such a cool, like a very, very neat
00:16:08
concept. The Spotify playlist for each
00:16:11
spread. It's fascinating.
00:16:13
Did the music shape the scenes or did the scenes come first?
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The. Scenes came first.
00:16:19
I had pages and pages and pages of ideas for these Easter eggs,
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and some of them were very specific for each store.
00:16:27
I guess we didn't really explain.
00:16:29
In a nutshell, three siblings overhear their grandparents
00:16:33
lamenting the loss of something from a long time ago.
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The kids don't know what it is, but they're they go on a secret
00:16:39
treasure hunt to find this. They go into the small town,
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with permission of course, and ask all the shop owners, do you
00:16:46
know what Nana and Papa lost a long time ago?
00:16:49
And none of the shop owners know.
00:16:50
But they all have stories to tell about way back when.
00:16:53
So they go to all these shops. So every shop had specific items
00:16:58
that just had to be in there. I mean, the travel store had to
00:17:01
have a poster that said Africa and and kids know that song
00:17:05
these days. So that has to be a big one,
00:17:06
right? Jacob's Ladder had to be in the
00:17:09
MCS hardware store. And there's just certain things.
00:17:12
And then we had a whole list of other things that I just told my
00:17:16
just outstanding illustrator, Missy J, Like these are extras.
00:17:20
If you figure out where to fit them in, put them in there and
00:17:25
we'll go from there. So definitely it was the Easter
00:17:28
eggs that had to fit in these shops.
00:17:30
And then the whole Spotify playlist was afterwards.
00:17:33
And like, people need to hear the soundtrack for this book.
00:17:36
And there are over 26 hours worth of songs on those lists.
00:17:42
That's that's impressive. I could listen to it all too.
00:17:44
I really could. It's it's the best songs.
00:17:47
What I have to ask this? What is your favorite song from
00:17:50
then? Man, I couldn't possibly pick
00:17:53
just one because I love so many of the genres and every probably
00:17:58
hour I'd pick a different one there.
00:18:02
I love Huey Lewis in the news. Their song Do You Believe In
00:18:05
Love is one song that I don't care how bad my day might be.
00:18:10
That song makes me smile and feel like everything's fine.
00:18:14
I just, it's happy, it's uplifting, it brings me back to
00:18:18
that time and yet still here. So that would be one that is
00:18:22
always, always a good one to listen to.
00:18:25
That is a good one. That is so you said that you
00:18:27
have. Several other books do.
00:18:29
You want to tell everyone about them?
00:18:32
My ultimate mixtape quiz books are probably my most popular.
00:18:36
There's there's the pink one, the first one, and the green
00:18:38
one. Second one.
00:18:40
The first one is all 70s and 80s music.
00:18:42
The quizzes are not your typical multiple choice.
00:18:45
There's not a single multiple choice question in that quiz
00:18:48
book. I used to search for quizzes
00:18:51
like that online and I print them out and I do them for fun
00:18:55
and I ran out, literally ran out.
00:18:57
Couldn't find more one day and thought but I could make my own
00:19:01
and COVID hit and that summer I wrote Ultimate Mixtape and
00:19:04
probably a year or two later I realized there were so many
00:19:08
songs and artists that I missed that I had to do side beat.
00:19:11
So that is seventies, 80s and early early 90s.
00:19:15
And and like I said, there's themes there that there's a lot
00:19:18
of word play going on in there. So people, it's fun to play on
00:19:23
your own. And I've also got instructions
00:19:25
if you want to play them as a group.
00:19:26
It's awesome for trivia nights, for class reunions, for just
00:19:32
hanging out by the pool or the campfire.
00:19:35
They're a lot of fun. They're they're my babies.
00:19:38
That's that does sound like fun. My husband and I always like to
00:19:41
do the guess the song on YouTube or whatever.
00:19:44
So that is our kind of thing. I'm gonna have to pick those up.
00:19:47
They're fun. Before that, when I actually did
00:19:49
one called. I like big books and I cannot
00:19:51
lie, and it's really geeky. It was real niche.
00:19:56
It's kind of geared toward people who love the book
00:19:58
publishing industry and love classic music.
00:20:02
It was kind of a calling card for my TLC book design company,
00:20:05
but I rewrote songs kind of like.
00:20:08
Weird Al. I I'm the publishing industry,
00:20:11
Weird Al, which is, you know, I'm so proud you.
00:20:14
Should be you should be they're. They're really fun for a really
00:20:18
small niche of people, but that sparked everything else, so yay.
00:20:23
Yeah, you got to start somewhere, right?
00:20:25
Definitely. Where can the audience?
00:20:27
Find you. I'm online kind of all over my
00:20:29
company is TLC. I have TLC book design on the
00:20:33
professional side and then I have totally cool 80s.
00:20:36
For everything else, you'll find me on all the social channels,
00:20:40
mostly totally cool 80s. I have Facebook page for TLC
00:20:45
book design as well. I have websites for both of
00:20:48
those simple sites. And I also have Yesterday
00:20:51
book.com. That's just for my new book.
00:20:54
There is a free downloadable answer key to all of the Easter
00:20:59
eggs for the yesterday book called the Backstage Pass.
00:21:02
So you can go there. And I tell people and they're
00:21:04
like, no, I want to find them all myself.
00:21:06
But it's a lot of fun. Awesome.
00:21:08
And I'll make sure that all of those are in the show notes for
00:21:11
everyone to explore. So yeah, thank you so much for
00:21:15
joining me. I love this this.
00:21:16
Has been great. Like I said, if we could talk
00:21:18
for. Hours.
00:21:19
Oh yeah, I could. I could literally talk for hours
00:21:21
about 80s music. I'm not even lying.
00:21:23
So. Thank you again for.
00:21:26
Joining me, Honestly, I feel like we could have talked about
00:21:31
80s music for another 3 hours. What I love the most about this
00:21:34
conversation is how Tammy blends creativity with intention.
00:21:38
The Day We Found Yesterday isn't just a clever concept, it's a
00:21:41
reminder to slow down, to share stories, and to really listen to
00:21:44
the people who came before us and the ones coming after us.
00:21:47
From hidden musical Easter eggs to heartfelt moments between
00:21:50
grandparents and grandchildren, her work captures something we
00:21:53
don't always think about until it's too late.
00:21:55
The importance of connection, memory, and legacy.
00:21:59
If you want to check out Tammy's books, her quiz series, or dive
00:22:02
into her interactive world of music and storytelling, I'll
00:22:05
have all of her links in the show notes, including where you
00:22:07
can find the day We Found Yesterday and even grab the
00:22:10
Backstage pass to uncover all of its hidden details.
00:22:14
And as always, if you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to
00:22:17
follow rate and share Plot Twist Radio.
00:22:19
It helps more people discover these incredible stories, and
00:22:22
trust me, there are plenty more twists to come.
00:22:24
Until next time, keep listening, keep creating, and maybe throw
00:22:27
on an 80s playlist. While you're at it.
00:22:29
Might I recommend Duran Duran?