About

The fourth old­est of ten chil­dren, I grew up lov­ing to read, often check­ing out an arm­ful of books from local libraries. I cre­at­ed many bed­time sto­ries for my younger brothers.

I am a mem­ber of SCBWI, Soci­ety of Chil­dren’s Books Writ­ers and Illus­tra­tors, and the Pres­i­dent of KIWI (Kids Indie Writ­ers & Illus­tra­tors), a local writer and illus­tra­tor’s group.

I have par­tic­i­pat­ed in “Fes­ti­val to Go” which brings authors and illus­tra­tors into the Rochester City School Dis­trict class­rooms (for five years — one year on video); the Rochester Chil­dren’s Book Fes­ti­val (RCBF), three times as a par­tic­i­pat­ing author and pre­sen­ter; and I have also par­tic­i­pat­ed in the FC3 Flower City Com­ic Con, in Rochester, New York.

I have com­plet­ed 2 out of 3 books in the Cloud­scape series. The idea came to me when I was fly­ing from New York to Cal­i­for­nia for a col­lege reunion. I was look­ing out the win­dow at the clouds and sud­den­ly, I could imag­ine kids run­ning across them, hav­ing so much fun. I quick­ly wrote down my ideas and Cloud­scape was born. It’s been a joy to write these books and I hope to com­plete the 3rd and last of the series by the end of 2025.

RATS With Back­packs: Dr. Don­na Kean and Her Work with APOPO, my third book, will be launched in Jan­u­ary – Feb­ru­ary 2025. This bio­graph­i­cal sci­ence book shares the excit­ing train­ing of the Res­cueR­ATs of APOPO to find sur­vivors after a nat­ur­al dis­as­ter,  and the girl who grew up to be a sci­en­tist work­ing with them.