Q: First, tell us something about yourself.
I was born in Texas and went to school in Texas. I attended the University of Houston, married then moved around the world with the oil industry. I now live in Denton, Texas.
Q: How and when did your journey start as a writer?
As a child, I was the quiet and shy one. I was always lucky to have words soaring through my mind even as a child. I sometimes think of my brain neurons as the pathways on which my words traveled, sometimes veering down the “road not taken”. I was lucky to have had the opportunity to travel with my husband who was transferred to England and Norway for ten years. This brought me closer to my childhood readings of fairy tales as I shared by reading the stories with my daughters and then later writing books with fairy tale references like Farting Four-Toed Troll.
Then, after returning to the States I went back to school to get my master’s in Speech/Language Pathology. This started me on my journey of writing. As I worked with young speech and language students I needed materials related to their goals and speech/language needs. What do you do for materials? Write a quickie story and, hopefully, be lucky enough to have an art teacher draw a few simple drawings. Then, I did not know anything about publishing a story I wrote so I hired a local illustrator who was able to do the formatting, etc. The journey then began.
Q: Tell us something more about your new books.
As I still travel to varied places, I like to write something about those. But, more than that, I enjoy writing books for my grandchildren. For instance, my book, Bee, Honey Bunny and Me, was inspired by my 2 y/o granddaughter who was our bunny whisperer. The illustrator, John D. Moulton, is an excellent portraitist so that was perfect as he used my granddaughter as his model.
Next, I continue to write and work with many great speech/language pathology authors. It is still difficult to get away from writing children’s storybooks that will help prepare them for school as children’s literacy has always been a goal for me. So, I wrote and dedicated my last book, Corky the Quirky Cow and the Cuckoo Concert to all the hard-working speech/language pathologists and teachers teaching pre-reading via humorous storybooks. After all, Corky the Quirky Cow (also referred by me as the animal speech therapist) was able to mimic all the animals and decided that she could teach the other animals her skill. There are a few hilarious pages and a surprise ending.
Q: How did these stories and characters come to your mind?
There is no specific incident that brings a story. It is all about life’s observations and love of words that can at some point be applied to an action spurred by these life observations. Maybe it is also an unusual children’s sense of humor that has never left me as I age.
Q: Do you want to leave any message for your readers?
My message is to read, read, read to children. Talk, talk, talk to children. And, most of all show compassion for all children.
