I was born in Shreveport, Louisiana, but moved to Houston, Texas, at the age of three when my father took a job here as a sheet-metal worker. I grew up in a neighborhood filled with kids. We played kickball, hide 'n seek, and kissing tag in our front yards. My mom's family was from East Texas, so that meant long car rides to visit them. Sitting still was torture for me. My mom would bring books for me to read in the car, but I preferred "I Spy" and license plate games. I had typically worn my mother out by the time we reached my grandparents' house. Mom often tells of a time when I was about four that I charged through my grandmother's front door after that four-hour car ride, whisked past the adults as they said their hellos, and made a beeline for my grandfather's chicken coop in the back yard. Along the way, I opened every kitchen cabinet, turned on all four burners of the kitchen stove, and started water running in the kitchen sink. The adults came looking for me when they got a whiff of Grandmother's foot iron ablaze in the middle of the stove and heard the chickens clucking choruses of stolen egg calamity out back.

The only books I made time for then were ones that tickled my ears with delightful sounds and tickled my funny bone with wacky characters. Dr. Suess fit that bill. Come to think of it, maybe my love of made-up words is what attracted me to my husband. His name is Kim and I like to tease him about the "Kimisms" he creates. Sometimes he says things like, "I sure am droggy," which is "drowsy" and "groggy" mixed together.

When our two sons came along, Green Eggs and Ham became a household favorite and the basis for weekly requests for my husband to crank out the skillet and the food coloring. Dr. Suess was eventually replaced by Shel Silverstein's comic poetry, which is still a favorite of mine. It wasn't until my oldest son was in the 5th grade that I learned what a Newbery book was. When I volunteered to do some reading in his class, I was given Johnny Tremain. That first half hour session with the kids turned into an afternoon of abandoning my to-do list while I finished the book I borrowed from the teacher.

A couple of years later when I returned to college to work on my undergraduate degree, I signed up for a children's literature class. Every story I read made my mind race with stories of my own. Possibly all those years of not being able to sit still had culminated in having lots of life experiences to draw from. I found myself cooking up all sorts of tales. After graduation in the summer of 1991, I took a weeklong writing-for-children workshop at Rice University. There I met a group of the most amazing people - children's writers. It was like being at camp with 13 year olds, only instead of having to supervise them - I was one of them!

I formed an especially close friendship with three of those writers that week, one of which was Kitty Griffin. Over the next eight years or so, Kitty and I individually worked on middle grade fiction, frequently critiquing each other's work. In the summer of 2000, circumstances led us to collaborate on a picture book that eventually became Cowboy Sam and Those Confounded Secrets. Kitty and I worked so well in tandem that we sold that story and two more since. And we hope to not stop there.

My sons are grown and gone now, and my husband and I have moved to a tree house just north of Houston. I call it that because everything is flip-flopped - the kitchen, family room, and master bedroom are upstairs. And since it's in the middle of a pine forest, all I see are trees when I look out the many windows. Our two spoiled old dogs keep us company. One is an English Bull Terrier named Jr. Seau, and the other is a Chocolate Lab named Hershey. Seau is a medium-sized fifty-five pound dog, but he doesn't know that. Sometimes he thinks he's a little lap dog, and sometimes he thinks he's big enough to pick fights with a neighbor St. Bernard. Hershey is sweet and much better mannered.

I'm a little better at sitting still these days. Besides loving to write, I also love to read and watch movies. Other hobbies I enjoy are traveling and creating things with my hands - like clay Santa's and clay pots, quilts, and flower arrangements. When I need to get moving (which is often), I hike, bike, roller blade, or row on the lake near my home. No matter what I'm doing, my mind is busy creating stories.