As a child, I did not want to be a writer. I wanted to be outside, wandering around in the woods or searching for salamanders in the streams near my Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania home. If I wasn't outdoors in nature, I was painting or drawing. The rest of the time I spent with my nose in a book, reading about nature and art and adventures.
In high school I worked in a youth museum, caring for injured wild animals and teaching younger kids about nature. I designed makeup, sets and costumes for school theater, too. I still did not want to write.
I earned a bachelor’s degree in Biology from the University of Maine and then taught elementary science for six years. My teacher-husband, Hank and I kept classroom zoos. We had more animals than we had students: birds, fish, a boa constrictor, a tarantula, gerbils, guinea pigs, salamanders, rats, hermit crabs, frogs, and many more. All of them had to come home in the summer to live with us in our log cabin in the New Hampshire woods.
I read with my students while my animals listened. Seeing how hungry the kids were for good books, and the impact the right book can have finally inspired me to start writing.
Meeting Jane Yolen and working with her critique group made all the difference at the shaky beginning of my career. I learned to write in a warm, nurturing community of other writers. Since then, writing and friendships have always been coupled in my mind. I met wonderful people at Society of Childrens Book Writers and Illustrators conferences and started a workshop group in my own home when my babies, Henry and Betsy, were in diapers.
It took six years and dozens of rejections before my first book was published in 1988. What a thrill that was! I made up a private little dance to do whenever I finish a book, and I danced a lot. I kept getting rejections after that, but I was selling books, too. After more than three dozen books, I still get rejections and I am still thrilled by each new publication. So is my husband, who sets off firecrackers every time, just to celebrate.
I kept teaching as I wrote. I was named a Master Teaching Artist for the State of Connecticut and visited nearly two hundred schools, designed and implemented a dozen paired school residencies, as well as presenting at regional and national conferences. That sounds like a lot of work, but I love it since I get to meet other book people.
For the last 23 years, I've written "The Naturalist," an award-winning weekly newspaper column for the New Haven Register (circ. 260,000.) I get to illustrate my column, too, so I get to sketch and paint.
As "The Naturalist" I am watching the climate change all around us. While some people still quibble about whether it is really happening, who to blame, and whether we should do anything about it, animals and plants are already adapting. I am happy to speak to groups about the amazing resilience of nature.
I still depend on other writers for companionship, support, and honing my craft. I work with one small critique group of dear writers who retreats to Maine every summer to work together. Another group I'm in has cooperated to post a website. I lead a large open SCBWI critique group in Guilford CT, and teach writing for children. In part, I'm passing on the gifts I was given by those writing groups that gave me my start. Lately I've been working with middle school and teen writing groups, too.
Now I live in Guilford Connecticut with my sixth-degree black belt husband, Hank, on the edge of a deep, wild pond. We often retreat to a log cabin we built in Springfield Vermont. I do lots of my writing out there in the woods. My household includes an artist son, a pitbull who thinks she is a pussycat, an old Tom who really is a cat, various snakes and a stuffed beaver named Chip.
- Date of Birth - ("DOB" in cop-speak) October 5, 1950
- Place of Birth - Philadelphia, PA. Moved to Pittsburgh PA as child, Barrington IL in middle school, Westport CT as teen (whew!)
- Favorite Books Read as a Child - Life Cycle books by Robert McClung and A Wrinkle in Time, by Madelyn L'Engyl
- Favorite Ice Cream - Pistacio
- I am naturally curly, chatty, chubby, friendly.
- I have multiple sclerosis and walk with a cane. It doesn't hurt at all.
- Favorite writers today - my writer's groups plus Chris Crutcher.
- Favorite writing quote - "Books are not written. They are REwritten." (sad, but true!)
- Favorite among books I have written - I don't have one. Some are more exciting to write, others scary; for some I learn the neatest facts, for others, I travel to cool spots. Each is special.
* If you have more questions, ask them on my contact page (click it above) and I'll add the answers to this list!
