Brittany Petish didn’t set out to become a children’s author. She set out, simply, to heal.
After the loss of her beloved dog Annabelle, Brittany found herself searching for somewhere quiet enough to hold grief. She found it in the Blue Ridge Mountains. And there, unexpectedly, she found a story.
“I needed an escape,” she says. “And that’s where everything started.”
What began as mourning soon became something else entirely: a body of work shaped by animals, connection, and the quiet, transformative power of trust.
The Dog Who Never Really Left
Annabelle wasn’t just a pet. Brittany calls her a soulmate.
After her passing at age 12, the absence was immediate and disorienting. But in the space that followed, something unusual began to happen. Blue herons started appearing, again and again, in moments that felt too precise to ignore.
One followed her and her dog, Tate, down a river, reappearing at every bend. Another flew overhead while Tate ran on a tennis court after a storm. Even a logo on a closed toilet seat at an art show stopped her in her tracks.
“I’ve never doubted that that’s her way of showing up,” Brittany says.
In her first book, Goodbye Blue, Annabelle lives on in metaphor.
“I start with writing. It’s how I process. Then the images come.”
Sally the Brave
If Annabelle’s story opened the door, a deer named Sally stepped through it.
While spending time in the mountains, Brittany encountered a doe with a poorly healed broken leg and a torn ear. Vulnerable, limping, and often pushed aside by stronger deer, Sally seemed like an unlikely companion. But she kept coming back.
Day by day, the two built trust. At first, Sally would only watch from a distance as Brittany tossed corn. Then she edged closer, eventually eating directly from her hand.
“It felt like magic,” Brittany says.
Sally now returns regularly, even bringing her baby back to the yard. She sleeps there, Fetish believes, because it’s a place where she feels safe. Brittany, who has spent 18 years volunteering with children with special needs, recognized something familiar in Sally’s story.
“She was the weakest one. The one others pushed aside,” she says. “And I think that’s why I connected with her.”
Sally became the heart of Fetish’s book, Sally the Brave, a story rooted in resilience, gentleness, and the kind of courage that doesn’t always look strong from the outside.
A Life Surrounded by Animals
Animals are a part of Brittany's daily life.
Tate, her dog, is both a rescue and a trained therapy and service animal. Daisy, her rabbit, is what she calls a “foster fail,” a temporary guest who became permanent.
They appear in her books as extensions of real relationships. Each story in her growing collection is drawn from lived experience.
“There’s always a real animal behind it,” she says. “And a real feeling.”
Stories That Heal Both Ways
Brittany’s books may be written for children, but their emotional reach is far wider.
At events and signings, she’s met readers navigating grief of all kinds, like a woman buying multiple copies of Goodbye Blue before attending a wake, a young girl who had lost her father just weeks earlier, a boy mourning his dog.
“The stories translate,” she says. “If you’ve ever lost someone you love, you feel it.”
For Brittany, these moments are the true measure of success. “If I touched one life, if for five minutes someone felt better—that’s why I’m doing this.”
Building Something Bigger
By day, Fetish leads creative teams for major clients, including work connected to the CDC and NIH. She manages designers, animators, and illustrators—skills that now serve her in a deeply personal way as a self-published author who handles every part of the process herself.
Following the Signs
In just a few months, Brittany has published five books, secured retail placements, planned dozens of events, and even earned silver and bronze medals in the Feathered Quill Book Awards, been shortlisted for the Chanticleer International Book Awards, and named a Finalist in the Wishing Shelf Book Awards
And yet, she doesn’t seem surprised. “Anytime I question if I should be doing this,” she says, “I get a sign.”
Sometimes, it’s a meaningful interaction at a quiet book festival. Sometimes, it’s a stranger who needed her story at exactly the right moment. And sometimes, it’s a blue heron appearing right on time.
A Different Kind of Wild
At its core, Brittany Fetish’s work is about what animals reveal: vulnerability, trust, grief, resilience, and connection without words. In their presence, she found a way to process loss—and, in turn, to help others do the same.
From a grieving dog owner in the mountains to an author reaching readers across communities, her journey has been guided by instinct.
“Even though I’m doing this alone,” she says, “I’m not alone.” And in her stories, neither are her readers.