“Delightfully creative. Fun!” I hugged a killer whale when I was 6, performed in a Broadway musical with my eyes closed, and have a knack for accomplishing the impossible. I love being a children’s book author. I’ll start with what my younger friends always want to know:
- I love chocolate milkshakes and Mediterranean food.
- My favorite movie is Ponyo.
- Favorite color? White.
- I love to dance – and tell stories.
- My favorite children’s book is When the Sun Rose by Barbara Berger.
- I have eight kids.
- Our first pet was a fat toad named Bofus.
I grew up travelling, meeting fascinating people – and finding more and more places to love. My siblings and I would build forts in the backwoods of Pennsylvania. In Utah, we would watch for the Bear Lake monster, eating bowls of sun-drenched raspberries swimming in cream. Then we would go home to the fire sunsets of Arizona. I couldn’t get enough of flying above the clouds.
I have a bucket-load of awards and accomplishments from college, but I won’t bore you with those.
The summer before I got married, I worked at Disneyworld with a bunch of Brazilians. We served hot dogs – and would walk home past the lit-up castle every night.
Magical.
My family and I have resided all over the globe. We currently live in Asia.
My husband is a bat biologist and professor.
I have been a writer for over three decades – and an educator for almost as long.
I just released a picture book to raise money to free children from slavery, and I am currently polishing a manuscript for a young chapter book (that could become a unique series, if all goes well). I have also written over 30 children’s books for a company in China.
On writing: I’ll always be learning. Like many, I sometimes edit my voice out – like cotton candy smushed into a mold.
I just need to fluff.
Writing is more delicious that way – with air and light breezing through. Sparkling threads breathing with imagination.
Sweet.
In the morning, before the diapers and schedules, crusty noses, emergencies, laughter, muck, I pray. I pull my thoughts together. Then I write. That is when I begin the impossible.