More About the Author

Back to School

After working as a journalist and author, and raising my two sons, I went back to school to earn an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts in 2016. During the cold winters and green summers of Montpelier, I studied the best of children's literature with the finest writers and inspiring students. While I was there, I wrote a novel and several picture books, but also realized that writing takes a lot of time and energy. Those books are still in progress.

Public Library

My local public library is where I find new books to read and start many of my own books. I don't know what I'd do without it! I also like to visit other libraries, especially The New York Public Library.

Research

I like to visit the places where my characters lived and worked. Sometimes I take my family, because they ask great questions and give me ideas. On a trip to Roosevelt's Little White House in Warm Springs, Georgia and the F. D. Roosevelt State Park, I took my mother, who remembers the Great Depression and President Roosevelt.

10 Things About Me

1. I grew up on the 11th floor of an apartment building in Brooklyn, New York.
2. In elementary school, I played Dorothy's dog Toto in the Wizard of Oz and Fern's mother in Charlotte's Web.
3. I caught minnows and ate them (alive) when my family spent summers on Cape Cod.
4. I am very interested in turtles and coyotes.
5. I do not love red jellyfish, or the possum that tips over my garbage can.
6. During college, I lived for a year in an historic round house in Exmouth, England. Sometimes I got lost finding my room.
7. I try to read a new poem every day.
8. I read The New York Times every morning.
9. My favorite place is the Greek island of Santorini, where my grandfather was born.
10. I'm learning to play Irish music on my fiddle.

I got to meet author Katherine Paterson at Vermont College of Fine Arts

My family's apartment on Clinton Hill, Brooklyn.

My family

A donkey on Santorini

How I Learned to Write...

A page from my Five-Minute Writing Notebook.

I started writing every day when my fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Redkey at Burr Farms School, initiated "Five Minute Writing." We had to open our little brown notebooks and keep our pencils moving for five minutes every morning. No stopping! No worries! I loved it. Even then, I liked to revise (see the crossed-out words!).
My first real job was as a newspaper reporter in Boston. With my notebook in hand, I forgot that I was shy, and learned to talk to many kinds of people -- senator, trumpeter, fisherman, lighthouse keeper, scientist, and more. To meet deadlines, I had write fast, and finish stories in a day. I also had to learn to spell.
Now I write books for children and teens. What an awesome responsibility. I try to write about things I care about, since I have to spend a long time researching, editing, revising, and re-writing. Things like voting rights, elephants, science, and human rights.

Poetry