The Children's Book Guild of Washington D.C.

I wrote my first book before I'd learned how to write. When I was four and a half years old I announced to my father one day that I wanted to write a book and since I couldn't yet write, he would be taking dictation. We began a nightly ritual of me staring off into space, imagining my story and him sitting, patiently writing it down as I told it. I could hardly wait for him to get home from work each day so we could "work on the book." Our family left for vacation on Cape Cod, and there I could corner him any time of the day to say we had to get to work. I remember the two of us in front of the tiny prewar cottage, bits of grass on the lawn poking up through soil that was mostly sand, Dad sitting in one of those wood and canvas folding beach chairs with a Cape Cod bay breeze threatening to blow the pages off his lap. I felt content that my story was not simply drifting away on the wind, but rather being preserved as a book.

When, after several weeks, the "book" was done, my mother typed it, I illustrated it, and I had my finished product. It gave me a wonderful feeling that I had created something solid from my imagination.

Between age four and a half and my early thirties, which is when I decided to write my second book, I grew up, got married, raised children, taught piano, guitar and dance lessons, then went to college, got a master's degree, and taught college classes. There was one hint that should have given me a clue as to my life's work: from first grade on, I read children's novels whenever I could find the time.

These days I make my living as a writer. It's the best job I can think of. I use my imagination and then, by putting down on paper what I have imagined, I create a doorway that invites others to see what I have seen in my mind's eye. It leaves me with a sense of satisfaction that virtually nothing else in my life can give me.

When I'm not writing, I'm usually risking life and limb climbing sheer rock cliffs, paddling white water rapids, or windsurfing high winds. During the winter I play it safe and spend a couple of months cross country skiing before the climbing/windsurfing/paddling season starts again in the spring. Somehow, the intense physical exertion of the sports seems to balance out the mental exertion of writing. Also, the kind of mental focus that is necessary during dangerous activities trains my mind to focus at other times, like when I'm imagining a scene and need to make it come alive on paper.