Seventeen years ago, 16-year-old Joe Robinson set off to be an apprentice farrier in England. He would vent his trials and tribulations to his mother, an English teacher at Stonyhurst College. She then did what anyone who had a plethora of humorous stories about farriery would do: She wrote a book.

Catherine Robinson’s 2017 novel Forging On is about a young man’s first year of training as an apprentice farrier in Yorkshire, according to the Telegraph and Argus.

Published by Orion, the book is now up for a national writing award from “Comedy Women in Print.” It’s one of 12 nominees up for the award, which was created to celebrate and support female comedy writers.

Her son’s attraction to farriery isn’t at all random. Robinson herself grew up around horses and would take Joe riding with her form the moment he could sit up.

Robinson is working to finish a second book now, while her son is now 33 with a farrier business of his own.