About the Author
My husband and I live a quiet life with our twelve children on a marshmallow farm in the Pacific Northwest.
Okay. That’s not true, but what did you expect from somebody who writes fiction?
The real story? I grew up in suburban Chicago in beautiful Des Plaines, Illinois, also known as The City of Destiny. (I am not making that up.) Although Chicago has been home for most of my life, I detoured to Kauai, Hawaii, for several years and now live in Seattle, Washington, where I hope to stay put. I have one husband and two grown sons. I am not a twin, but I did grow up with two younger sisters close to my own age and two older brothers. My family also includes nieces and nephews as well as great nieces and nephews (who are younger and vastly superior to the original nieces and nephews, which is why they are called “great”).
Writing and books have always been important to me. Deciding what to be when I grew up was hard, but I’ve always done something related to books, writing, or working with kids. These are some of the jobs I’ve had: teacher, book editor, library paraprofessional, marshmallow farmer. (Okay, the last one is fake, and I have to stop saying that.) These days I write, do school visits, and teach. That means I get to do a wide variety of things from inventing new stories to reading aloud to children to creating artistic masterpieces with sidewalk chalk. (If the rain would quit washing them away, you would be really impressed.) And when I am not working, I’m usually cooking or reading or hanging out with my husband, who is a wonderful person and a talented marshmallow farmer.