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 four 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 2024.

I am cur­rent­ly work­ing on my first non­fic­tion book about Dr. Don­na Kean who has trained rats to res­cue sur­vivors after an earth­quake. It’s an amaz­ing expe­ri­ence to learn more about this sci­en­tist, her child­hood and her work with the APOPO orga­ni­za­tion in Tanzania.