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Hello! What a great opportunity this is to introduce
myself to new readers. Thanks, JacketFlap.

I began writing and drawing in elementary school. My black crayon was always worn down to a nub because I used it to draw horses with long, flowing tails. By the time I reached junior high age, I had begun to think about writng and illustrating books for children.

Fast forward many years (during which I got degrees in Fine Arts and Education, got married, taught special education students, moved a lot, adopted some children, gave birth to a child, and had open heart surgery). After the heart surgery, I could actually hear the artificial valve ticking away, and I realized time does "run out" eventually. So I decided to make my dream of getting published come true.

Two years after the surgery, my first short story was published. Since then, I've written and illustrated a number of stories that have appeared in the Cricket Magazine Group's publications. My fictional story based on my mother's memories of the 1918 flu pandemic, published in Cricket, won the International Reading Association's Short Story Award.

My first novel, Don't Call Me Marda, is based on our family's experience with adopting school age children. I also drew on my recollections of teaching developmentally delayed children. This book was a finalist for the Benjamin Franklin Award.

A Horse for All Seasons: Collected Stories for middle-grade readers and Little Prince Know-It-All for early readers are my two best-selling books.

When I wrote Land of Another Sun, I included all the elements that I knew my own children would love -- such as a cat with an attitude, flying horses, a sense of danger, and a generous helping of magic.

Obviously Land is a fantasy, but you will need to read The Shadowed Unicorn to find out if the children in that novel actually capture the dark unicorn that Ami insists lives in the woods. A review in Booklist likened The Shadowed Unicorn to Bridge to Terabithia, and it was on the short list for the Prairie Pasque Award.

I've written some short chapter books such as Lazy Bones Jones, Leaping Lena, and Horses of the Air that are read by schoolchildren in several countries.
I've also illustrated two picture books and am working on a dummy book that will be making the rounds to publishers soon.

Stay tuned . . . and keep reading!

Hello! What a great opportunity this is to introduce myself to new readers. Thanks, JacketFlap. I began writing and drawing in elementary school. My black crayon was always worn down to a nub because I used it to draw horses with long, flowing tails. By the time I reached junior high age, I had begun to think about writng and illustrating books for children. Fast forward many years (during whi... More