Although I’m an Indiana girl by birth, I spent most of my childhood in western Pennsylvania. My little hometown had one stoplight and one blinker light. Amish buggies clip-clopped by our house morning and evening.
As a quiet kid who loved stories, I spent a lot of time reading. When my dad was in graduate school in Muncie, Indiana, my three siblings and I shared a tiny bedroom in a small apartment. At night, my dad would lie on the floor with his head on a big shaggy stuffed dog and tell us stories about two hippopotamuses named Daisy and Lullabelle. One of my fondest memories of Indiana is checking out books from the bookmobile that pulled up in front of our apartment complex once a week.
When we moved to Pennsylvania, we lived in a bigger house with more bedrooms. So my mom, who was a teacher and an expert at reading aloud, sat in the hallway between the room I shared with my sister and the room my brothers shared and read to us at bedtime. We fell asleep listening to Rabbit Hill, Charlotte’s Web, and all the Beverly Cleary books.
When I was in fourth grade, I got my first pair of glasses. For the next six years, I failed every eye test I took. My ophthalmologist told my parents I should stop reading so much. Luckily, they didn’t listen; they just kept getting me new glasses.
So I happily read my way through elementary school, junior high, and high school. When it was time for college. I wanted to major in English, but I didn’t think I wanted to be a teacher like my parents. So I majored in Theatre. I married my college sweetheart before my senior year. We moved to New Hampshire after I graduated. I sold furniture and clothing, waited tables, and worked at an electric company before deciding I wanted a career, not just a series of job. We left New Hampshire and went back to school in my husband’s hometown in western New York.
After completing my master’s degree in English, the English Department hired me to teach freshman composition. A few years and three kids later, I started teaching literature and writing classes for future elementary school teachers: a dream job for a girl who loved to read and write. All those years of teaching middle grade novels was the perfect preparation for writing my own book, and that brings me to today.
My first book, Light and Air, is a MG historical novel set in 1935. Much of the book takes place in a tuberculosis sanatorium, inspired by the ruins of the J.N. Adam Memorial Hospital in nearby Perrysburg, New York.