Growing UpI grew up in a big white house on a corner near Lake Michigan in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I have six--yes, six!--sisters. One of them, Judy, is my twin.
Can you guess which one is me? Even my mother is not sure.
My sisters and I sang together while we were growing up, especially while we did the dishes. When I was in college, some of us sang in a band. We called ourselves The Early Sisters. We had tons of fun.
The Early Sisters: Peggy, Judy, JoAnn, and Eileen
Becoming a WriterI've always enjoyed writing, too. My mother saved a story I wrote in second grade about how much I loved walking our neighbor's dog, Zsa Zsa. I know my imagination was working when I wrote that story because that dog was mean!
I worked at lots of different jobs while I was growing up. Many of them involved writing of one kind or another. For many years, I wrote software manuals. After I got married and our kids were born, I started reading to them. That's when I realized how much I loved children's books. I found a poem I had written in college twenty years earlier. I sent it to many publishers, and after several revisions, one of them accepted it. That poem became Cats on Judy, my first published book. I decided I needed to know more about writing, so I took every class I could find. I joined the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. I went back to school for a Master of Fine Arts in Writing for Children and Young Adults degree from Vermont College. Mostly, I just kept writing. I've written poetry, picture books, nonfiction books for beginning readers, a couple of novels, and some short stories for young adults. For two years, I worked as an editor for a publisher of educational books for children. Now I am a freelance writer again. I visit schools to help students write poetry. I also give talks for adult writers. And I keep writing as much as I can. Finding Ideas
I find some of my best ideas when I go for walks. This bench is one of my favorite places. When I walk to the lake, I often stop here and think.
How I WriteI always carry a little notebook in my pocket so I can write down any ideas that bump into me. Sometimes I gather those little slips of paper together to create a poem or a story. Sometimes just one word or phrase sparks a new writing project. The beginning of something new is always the most exciting part for me. Then I try to buckle down and revise and revise. And revise again.
I always work on paper until my draft is pretty solid. I write in spiral notebooks or on legal pads at my desk. I only go to the computer when I'm getting close to a final version. 
I really like working in my pajamas!
I am often busier than I'd like to be, but my goal is still to write something every day. I'd better get back to it!
Some of My Favorite BooksPicture Books
Brave Potatoes by Toby Speed Farfallina and Marcel by Holly Keller One Is a Snail, Ten Is a Crab: A Counting by Feet Book by April Pulley Sayre and Jeff Sayre One Little Mouse by Dori Chaconas Tessa's Tip-Tapping Toes by Carolyn Crimi Come On, Rain! by Karen Hesse Books for Beginning Readers Red-Eyed Tree Frog by Joy Cowley Nate the Great by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat Middle Grade & Young Adult The White Darkness by Geraldine McCaughrean Trash by Sharon Darrow Each Little Bird That Sings by Deborah Wiles The Folk Keeper by Franny Billingsley Black Juice and Red Spikes by Margo Lanagan The Gift Moves by Steve Lyon A Great and Terrible Beauty and Rebel Angels by Libba Bray Listening at the Gate by Betsy James Mind Games by Jeanne Marie Grunwell Silk Umbrellas by Carolyn Marsden Spinning Through the Universe: A Novel in Poems from Room 214 by Helen Frost Yankee Girl by Mary Ann Rodman Surrender by Sonya Hartnett Story of a Girl by Sara Zarr Books I Remember from When I Was Growing UpThe Color Kittens by Margaret Wise Brown
Angelo the Naughty One by Helen Garrett Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins by Dr. Seuss The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf Curious George by H. A. Rey Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren Grimm's Fairy Tales anything about King Arthur & the knights of the round table the Honey Bunch series by Helen Louise Thorndyke Misty of Chincoteague by Marguerite Henry the Nancy Drew series by Carolyn Keene Little Women by Louisa May Alcott Sherlock Holmes mysteries by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle short stories by Edgar Allen Poe The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 
The Dream of the Marsh Wren: Writing as Reciprocal Creation by Pattiann Rogers
• a book about writing poetry based on my Write a Poem Step by Step workshops • handouts for summer classes • my spring newsletter--sign up on the News page to receive an e-mail copy!
Here I am on the Buffalo River!
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