People generally have mixed feelings about grackles. Some people find them loud and annoying, while others look past the noise and focus on their iridescent colors and intelligence. Victoria Freeland, a Sun City resident, has a personal connection to the bird.
Freeland lived in Las Cruces, NM for seven years, where she regularly took water aerobics classes. A resident grackle named Samantha frequently visited the class because one of the members dumped the pool’s bug basket onto the deck for it. The whole class grew to love this bird.
One day, a roadrunner came into the community and went after her babies. Samantha ran the roadrunner off. Another day, when Freeland was walking her dogs, she saw a grackle dive bomb a hawk to run it off as well. They will do anything to protect their babies.
Freeland carried Samantha’s story after leaving New Mexico and recently decided to share it with the world in the form of a book. She initially pictured the book to be an adult novel but didn’t like it after the first write. She asked ChatGPT if it could rewrite the story with a Dr. Seuss cadence and the rest was history.
“The words are mine, but the style came from ChatGPT,” she said.
“Samantha the Grackle: A Mother with Grit” is a children’s story written for mothers.
“I think she’s really captured not only the bird, but the dignity that the bird used to protect the young and the next,” one reader, Nadine Meis, said. “That bird protected the young which all mothers do. That’s motherhood.”
Freeland has found there to be a lot of sentiment surrounding artificial intelligence, with people saying it’s sloppy and soulless. However, she said her experience could not be more positive.
“I am finding my identity as a different kind of storyteller than when I was telling people about data warehouses,” she said. “I don’t think there’s anything more important than authenticity. I think everybody is afraid of AI stealing what is authentically human. It’s been my experience that AI continues to make me more and more authentically myself. I want to really lean into that and embrace that.”
Freeland’s father passed away when she was just 12 years old.
“He was my moral compass growing up,” she said. “He taught me right from wrong. He taught me to stand up for myself. Even though I only had him until I was 12, I was tough.”
She has taken some of the stories her father told and is writing stories with him in mind. One of her upcoming books, “We’re Not Bagels. We’re Everything,” does just that, showing how 12 girls of different ethnicities make their own magical playground because the boys at the real playground bullied them.
“She’s the nicest, most concerned person at bridge,” Meis said about Freeland. “She knows everybody and talks to everybody. She’s got depth and she’s got feelings. She believes in herself.”
Freeland also created a coloring book to accompany the picture book. The images in the coloring book coincide with the original book.
Community: I live in Phoenix but am covering Sun City and the Arizona Biltmore area.
Education: I graduated from Arizona State University's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication in May 2025 with a bachelor's degree in sports journalism.
Random Fact: My little league all-star team was a win away from reaching the juniors Little League World Series. The next season, we were two wins away from the same feat.
Hobbies: I love spending any amount of time outside! Whether that's hiking, swimming, playing catch with friends or just sitting in the sun, you can almost always find me doing something in nature.
By 
Comments
No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here