Hi! Thanks for visiting my web page. No matter how old I get, it still amazes me that I'm actually a published author and that people like you care enough to stop by and visit me. But I'm so glad you did! So what can I tell you about myself? Well, I'm not much different than anyone else you might pass on the street, except that I love to write. Unlike a lot of writers, though, I didn't know I wanted to bea writer when I was a child. I didn't know I could be a writer. I thought only rich and
famous people got cool jobs like that.
But looking back I can see that I was always a storyteller. When I was very young, I loved dreaming up story ideas to act out with my friends. In the sixth grade I remember spinning tales on the playground to amuse my classmates. I actually even wrote a novel that year. Chapter by chapter I brought it in and passed it around, and my friends devoured it like episodes of a soap opera. Sadly, I threw that first story away when I reached my teens, thinking it childish and embarrassing. I wish I could read it now. (Don't ever throw a story away!) Later, while in college at the University of Connecticut, I worked summers on a factory assembly line. To relieve the boredom of that job, I made a game of making up stories. One of my co-workers would give me a character or situation and I'd make up a story on the spot and just keep going on and on to pass the time as we worked.
In addition to loving stories, I've always loved children. I was the one grown-ups adored at family picnics - the one with my arms full of babies, and a little trail of toddlers following after me everywhere I went. It wasn't until after I graduated from college, though (in 1970), got married, and had my first child, that my love of children and storytelling naturally flowed together and I began my first attempts at writing stories for her. Two sons followed, and a lot more attempts. Then, when my third child graduated from diapers, my husband gave me a brand new electric typewriter (it was before the days of computers) and I began to pursue in earnest by dream of being a children's book writer.
Three years later, in 1986, my first children's story was published in an anthology. It was a beginning, but it would be two more long years of hard work - over ten years in total - before my first book would be accepted. That book, IMPY FOR ALWAYS, came out in 1989. Over three dozen have followed.
These days I live in quaint, historic, Boxborough Massachusetts. Sadly, I lost my beloved husband of fifty years in 2020, but I see all of my children and grandchildren frequently, especially in the summer at my little cottage on Cape Cod. When I'm not writing, I enjoy painting, reading, hiking, biking, making gingerbread houses, and most of all, hanging out with family!
PS: For those of you who need to know, I was born in 1948. :)
Further questions? CLICK HERE and email me!
An exciting thing that happened a few years after IF I HAD ONE WISH came out is that I got a call from my agent, who told me that a producer was interested in making my book into a Disney Channel Original Movie! My husband and I got to go to New Zealand where the movie was being filmed and visit the set and meet all the young stars. They changed the title to YOU WISH and changed a lot of the book. It came out to be a really fun movie, but I still think the book is better. :) Watch it on the Disney Channel, then read the book and EMAIL ME and let me know what you think.
