I'm an only child and I share a birthday with Ernest Hemingway and Robin Williams. That should tell you a lot about me! I'm a full-blown introvert who has learned how to fake being an extrovert when I need to and my moods can change from up to down and back again before you know it.
I was born on July 21, 1958, in Concord, California, a town that sits roughly between San Francisco and Sacramento. Most of my childhood, my mom and I lived with my grandmother. At my grandmother's house, my bedroom was up in the attic, which was a second floor I had all to myself.

It was the only room I ever had that my mom didn't bug me to keep clean. No one else ever came all the way up those steep stairs to my room. Sometimes I would make-believe I was a princess and my room was really a tower in the castle.

I liked to follow my grandfather around while he did his chores and fixed things around the house. I even followed down to the basement and under the house. When he went duck hunting I would help him pluck the feathers from the ducks and when it was time to knock the walnuts off the trees I used to try to help.

Most of the time I was a pretty good kid but like most kids, sometimes I got in trouble.


The worst thing about where we lived was not having any other kids around to play with. I had friends at school but they all lived at the other end of town. The neighborhood I lived in was where everyone's grandparents lived but not very many kids my own age. So I learned to use my imagination when I got lonely. By inventing imaginary friends, I managed to stay out of my mother’s and grandmother's way, at least some of the time.



The rest of the time I spent riding horses,

 roller skating competitively,

or curling up with a good book. I remember that my Uncle Fred used to bring me a book for birthdays and Christmas.  My grandmother had a lot of old Reader's Digest Condensed books and I used to read them all the time. Eventually I found the used book store downtown and I would go down there and just "hang out" around the books. Luckily the owner of the shop seemed pretty patient with me because I never really had the money to buy any books.
 
My mom would probably tell you I spent most of my teen years on the phone.       
I always seemed to be writing something, often really bad poetry about events that I had never even experienced. I tried to publish my first book when I was 12 years old. It seemed perfectly acceptable to me that the publisher wanted me to send them $2000 to publish my book of poems, and I didn't understand why my mom wouldn't let me do it. Now I know that was just a vanity press and that publishers are supposed to pay ME, not the other way around. But back then, my literary hopes felt completely dashed.

I loved everything about going to school, yes, even the homework part. But then I was lucky and most of it came easy to me—everything but math. I still hate anything to do with numbers.
 
In 1976, I graduated from Mt. Diablo High School in Concord. My mom and my grandmother both graduated from the same high school. I always thought that was kind of neat. I got married in 1977, and soon had two children, Ryan and Jennifer. We moved to Oakley, a small town not far ouside of Concord, where there was still a little patch of country left, and I could get back around horses again. I didn't take my writing seriously until after my kids were born. Before they were in school, I traded babysitting with other new moms so I could have time to write. I couldn't wait for them to go off to school. I remember how excited I was when my daughter started kindergarten. For the first time I would have five hours a day, every day, to write. All the other moms cried when their kids got on the school bus, but not me. I ran all the way home and back to the typewriter. (Yes…there was a pre-computer time.)

It was hard squeezing in writing, and learning about writing, amidst chauffeuring my kids to Little League, soccer, gymnastics, karate, and horses, but I tried, and somehow I managed. I carried a notebook with me whenever I took the kids to all their activities. I got good at tuning out the noises around me while I wrote. Pretty soon I was writing all the time, and the kids were telling all their friends how one day their mom would have books in the library. My kids always wanted me to write stories about them, until they got old enough to be embarrassed by some of the things I told them they did when they were little. They did give me a lot of inspiration though, especially for my book Did Not! Did So!

In 1994, I was divorced and moved out of California for the first (and last) time in my life. My kids stayed with their dad to finish school and I was suddenly 100% alone. Talk about scary! I was borderline agoraphobic when I left, afraid of driving at night, in the rain, and over bridges. My friends didn't think I would survive the trip but I did, giving proof to Hemingway's comment, "The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong in the broken places."

I drove cross-country and landed in Norfolk, Virginia. My favorite memory about Virginia is the Chesapeake Bay. I could watch it for hours. I lived in Virginia for almost a year, working as a temp in different places, including a taxicab company. Next I moved to New Orleans. New Orleans was quite different from anything I had ever experienced. Back in California, we worried about earthquakes. Now I had to worry about hurricanes! I wasn't too crazy about the weather in New Orleans, but they did have some great food like crawfish and deep-fried turkey at Thanksgiving and Christmas. I worked for an oilfield company and ran their warehouse. It was actually a lot of fun. I also wrote a weekly column in the New Orleans Times Picayune where I got to write about local people and events. I went to several Mardi Gras parades, which can be exciting, and collected a lot of what they call "throws," which are beads, fake coins, and toys that they throw off the floats and into the crowds.

 I got homesick for California, and my kids, and in January of 1998 I moved back to California and to the Silicon Valley. My children are both grown and out on their own now but when I look back, it really doesn't seem that long ago that I was reading children's books to my kids instead of trying to write them and publish them for myself.


My biggest challenge is juggling my work week with my writing. Since my writing isn't self-supporting, I have to work at a more conventional job during the week, and squeeze my writing in whenever I can. I'd have plenty of time to do everything I want if I didn't need to sleep. For a time I also had to squeeze in going to college because for many years my biggest regret was that I didn't go to college right after high school. But in September of 2000 I finally got my college degree. I have a passion for medieval history, am a confirmed chocoholic (with a definite weakness for Reese's peanut butter cups and Mr. Goodbars), and believe it is nearly impossible to digest food unless you are reading while you eat.
 
Some of my friends don't think I play enough, but the truth is, I love everything about the writing business so much that it feels more like play than work. I enjoy writing letters to friends, researching projects on the Internet, and watching movies that make me cry.

I'm also active in several groups like The Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators and the California Writers Club.

At the moment, I live with my husband Erik in San Jose, California. I love to collect things — books, cobalt blue glass, blue and white china, and figurines that have something to do with reading and  writing. (My favorites are the cartoon characters.)

I don't know what the future brings except, I hope, more wonderful writing adventures. But for now there's a lot of laughter in our house and books in every room.