Biography:

            When I was a child, my favorite game was Authors. Even before I could read, I memorized the portraits of the authors on the playing card so that I could identify Louisa May Alcott and Charles Dickens by their picture. One day I hoped to be an author and would see my name in gold print beneath the title of my books. By the grace of God, this wish has come true.

            In first grade, I wrote my first poem and set it to a tune that I composed at my child-size piano. My teachers and parents encouraged my passion for words. I read constantly and memorized many of Robert Louis Stevenson's poems from A Child's Garden of Verses. One of my favorites:

                                   "The friendly cow all red and white,
                                   I love with all my heart:
                                   She gives me cream with all her might
                                   To eat with apple tart."

            Because I spent many hours in the library, I became good friends with the children's librarian, Mrs. Borosco who told me about the Hunt Club, a section for young writers in the Horn Book Magazine. She encouraged me to submit my stories and although none of my writings were ever published, I saved my rejection letters and felt like a real author.

In 1989, I attended the Spencerian Saga with Tasha Tudor, and during that week one of the workers told us a personal anecdote. Tasha offered to collaborate on a book if I would develop Grandma Kathy's tale into a story that we titled The Real Pretend. My other picture book is, The Secret of the Red Shoes published by Ideals, and Holiday House has published my young adult novels, A Pebble and A Pen, and my most recent book, On Viney's Mountain.

            In addition to writing for children, my personal essays about farm and home life have appeared in The Christian Science Monitor, Ideals Magazine, Rosebud Magazine, and in several anthologies: The Best of the Best of the Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference 2006 and 2007, At Home in the Garden, Home for Christmas, and Christmas is a Season 2008. One of my essays, Saint George and the Dragon, received the Hearst Award for Excellence in Literary Nonfiction at the Mayborn 2007 conference. Some of my essays, such as When the Bees Came Looking for Carlos, have been republished on state diagnostic reading exams. And for the past two years, my "audio postcards from the farm" have aired on our local NPR affiliate, WMUK that broadcasts from Western Michigan University.

            I earned my Master in Fine Arts from Spalding University with a major in creative nonfiction and a minor in writing for children.