I had this cool teacher, Mrs. Graham, who put pictures on the blackboard and told us to write our own story about the picture. She took me and a couple of other kids to a lecture she gave to fellow teachers about her radical new teaching techniques. I got stuck at the blackboard in the back of the room where no one could see me. Rats. But, I got the best picture. A white kitten sitting in a colander of spaghetti noodles. Yes. I filled that chalkboard with an amazing tale. The girl who got to be at the front board just wet her pants.

I grew up, went to Tekoa High School and got to go to a week long fiction writing workshop at Washington states glorious retreat, CENTRUM, where I fell in love with Tolkein, Peter S. Beagle, who called me a true writer, and a blonde boy from Tacoma who gave me a seashell and kissed me good-bye.

I graduated, fled the pig farm for Brigham Young University, and fell in love with Keats, Donne, Eugene England, and a dark-haired returned missionary from Ottawa, Ontario, who I promptly married.

I got to work on having those ten kids, ended up with four fantastic children--Rob, Andy, Rachel, and Will. No cats.

I devoted myself to momness and volunteered at school and church to find outlets for my creative energy. I wrote when I could, published a short story in The Friend (official LDS kids magazine), and joined the invaluable, Society of Children’s Book Writer’s and Illustrators (SCBWI).

I love my children and loved being home with them as they grew. In today’s world, it is a luxury, and I am so thankful to my husband for providing it. I even love teenagers, and volunteered to teach LDS teens in my home every school day morning at 6:30 AM. BUT, after twenty years of full-time motherhood, divine as it was, I needed more.

The artist inside me was tired of finger paint and play dough. When my youngest son went to school full-time, my artist demanded her freedom. She was weak and sickly, needed massive transfusions and careful rehabilitation if she was going to survive. I went to SCBWI’s big national conference in LA, picked up a brochure for a low-residency master of fine arts program, noticed all the instructors had MFAs from Vermont College, applied to VCs writing for Children and Young Adults program, got in and, WOW, that changed my life forever. (For more of my journey from worn-out mom/wannabe writer to published author and poet, read my TAKEN BY STORM blog.)

These days I try to write every day. I get grumpy if I don’t. I bubble with glee after a long day with characters I love. I have a list of twenty novels that I want to write. I’m a compulsive reader and have to ration myself or I won’t do anything else, including eating, sleeping, interacting with other humans in any way. And writing my own books. I play the piano and like just about any song you can sing along with in the car or dance to. I took ballet when I was four, ballroom at BYU, and sewed myself the most amazing disco outfits in high school.

I am an advanced NAUI nitrox certified scuba diver. No lie. I’ve got over a hundred dives under my weight belt. Allen and I dive all over the world--from the Caribbean to the Red Sea to the waters off Phuket, Thailand (where I got the bends). All the kids dive now, too. It’s great fun. Except getting the bends.

We lived in Lausanne, Switzerland where my hubby, Allen, taught the CEOs of the world’s future for four years, and then we moved to Singapore all of Asia could profit from his wisdom. We spent a year there, and now we’re happily settled back in Arizona, which is the closest thing to home we vagabonds have. Yippee. We found a home in the desert on the edges of Mesa--greater Phoenix--and can’t get enough of the sunshine, cactus and the smell of mesquite after monsoon rains.