About Me

I started building stories in my imagination long before I wrote them down. Up until I started first grade, my mother insisted I take a nap every day after lunch. (I think she was the one who really needed the nap!) Since I wasn’t interested in sleeping, I spent the time imagining myself as the main character of the books and stories that I loved. I did the same when I went to bed at night. I called these stories my Chapters, and I never shared them with anyone. It wasn’t until I was an adult that I started writing stories down. I guess I have always had the question “what if” swirling in my head.

I loved the Lloyd Alexander fantasy series The Chronicles of Prydain. My older sister and I also loved Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie books and spent hours outside pretending to be Laura and Mary gathering “provisions” for our long winter. I also loved the Misty of Chincoteague books by Marguerite Henry, and so many others that I don’t have room to list.

Yes! I grew up on a farm in New Hamsphire where we had horses, sheep, pigs, a goat, ducks, geese, and even a few cows. Now my family has a dog named Grace who was a rescue from the Hurricane Harvey flood in Houston, Texas. She is mostly Great Pyrenees, but also Alaskan Malamute and Siberian Husky, which means she has a LOT of thick white fur. Our cat’s name is Sausage. She often sits on my lap when I write. She is very shy and hides when people come to visit. Our cat, Nolan, is no longer with us. He had a huge personality and appears in some of my books.

Yes, but not just one! The Hopkinton Town Libraryis a very special place and I have done a lot of writing there. I love reading in the Adirondack chairs they have on their screened porch and in the comfy chairs in front of the fireplace. I wrote some of The Runaway’s Gold there.  The Weeks Memorial Libraryin Lancaster, NH is also very special to me. I loved going there as a child and picking out books in children’s section on the lower level where the children’s librarian was very kind and patient. And I am also a huge fan of the Library of Congressin Washington, D.C. (if you haven’t been, please visit!) and one of its early Librarians of Congress, Aisworth Rand Spofford. Librarian Spofford was appointed by President Lincoln and from my home state of New Hampshire.

I only write about things that truly interest me. My ideas come from things I want to explore — the things I just HAVE to find out about. With The Runaway’s Gold, I was trying to uncover the reasons my ancestor came to America. With Dominic Bean and the Mammoth Melt, I learned woolly mammoths once lived where I live now and I was excited to research and write about this. Also, I’m very concerned about the affects of climate change on the Earth. When I learned about the perils of Arctic permafrost melt, I was motivated to write a novel about the ways some scientists are trying to prevent it.