Growing up, I always wished something exciting would happen to me. It seemed like nothing ever did—unless I was reading a book. When I read Beverly Cleary's Henry Huggins, I could have a dog, just like Henry. When I read Beatrix Potter's The Tale of Peter Rabbit, I could find out just what animals said when they talked to each other. And when I grew older and read Louise Fitzhugh's Harriet the Spy, I practiced on spying on my relatives as a sworn member of my sisters' and cousins' Respect Your Youngers spy club.
Eventually, I did grow up to take lots of notes—but not spy—in my career as a daily newspaper reporter. While I covered every possible beat, from politics to education to business, my favorite articles came from interviewing people for feature stories—stories that told how they came to do what they do. I remember writing about an old man who ran a cider mill, a retiree who kept bees, a man whose business drove the supports under some of Boston's biggest office towers, a young woman who dreamed of becoming a country music star—and many years after I interviewed her, she realized that dream.
My mom always created stories about people we passed on the street or observed from the car. "Maybe that woman is hosting her daughter's birthday party, because she's walking into the bakery....Or maybe she's stopping to get some dough for pizza, because it's the weekend...Or maybe..." My three sisters and I would laugh, but she showed me how being observant can spark the imagination.
Mom worked in the public library, and she brought stacks and stacks of books home for me. For my first job, I put books back on shelves at the same library, and, harboring a secret dream of being an author, imagined what company my books would have. I also ran the summer reading program and met with children who loved to read.
I majored in English at The College of
William and Mary in Virginia, earned a master’s in English from Boston College, and and a
master’s of Library Science from Southern Connecticut State University.
It probably didn't surprise anyone that I eventually became an elementary school library teacher and aspiring children's book author. Now I write from the shores of Morses Pond in Wellesley, Massachusetts, (and sometimes from on the pond itself, where I kayak almost every day in summer) where I live with my husband, daughter, rabbit, too many fish, and Walker Foxhound, Tucker,
who has his own blog.
