About the Author

Why am I a writer?
When I was a young girl, I wanted to be a teacher.  I’d line up my stuffed animals in front of a board with magnetic letters and numbers and teach them the alphabet and how to count. In high school I wanted to be a tennis player.  I was on the tennis team and played at our neighborhood tennis club in the summers – and even competed in tournaments. Then in college I thought digging dinosaur bones would be a cool job. Or working at a big time advertising agency. It wasn’t until after college, when I was working in public relations, that I had my "magical moment."

The Magical Moment                                                                                                                              At a Christmas bazaar, I spied Chris Van Allsburg's book, The Polar Express. When I picked it up and started flipping through the pages, all of a sudden the people around me disappeared and it was just me and the book in a beam of sparkly white light. I remember being in awe of the magic of his story and illustrations. After closing the book, the light disappeared and the people returned. It is at that moment I decided I wanted to write children’s books. I wanted to see if my active imagination could create magical moments for kids all over the world. So I started writing. Luckily, I sold my first manuscript, Hippity Hop, Frog on Top, in 1992.  I’ve been writing ever since.

Why I write now.
I love the freedom of being my own boss, of coming up with ideas, and writing that first draft to see if my idea has any spark. I’m not so crazy about the revising process although there are thrilling moments when I figure out a better way to say something, nail dialog, or work through a complicated plot line. The most exciting moment is when an editor says they want to publish my story.  Then I know all my hard work has paid off, and that soon, children will enter my imaginative world through a book.