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A born writer?
My passion for writing began at an early age. I spent many hours grouping random letters together in the hopes of creating a real word. Then one day my mother announced that I had successfully spelled “chair.” From that point on I was hooked on the magic of writing! I went on to write stories, poems, novels, and comic strips all through my school years. My first published piece came in 5th grade, with a letter to the editor about the plight of baby harp seals. After that I practiced signing my autograph over and over because I was convinced that someday I would become a book author.
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A career in book publishing
The first thing I wanted to be when I grew up, even before I wanted to be a writer, was a shoe sales clerk. When that didn’t happen as planned, I went on to spend sixteen years working in the book publishing industry. During that time I was also an active member of the Twin Cities book community.
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My first book
My first book, Not Enough Beds!, was published in 1999 by Carolrhoda Books. In this picture book, Zachary tells the story of too many relatives and not enough beds on Christmas Eve. It was inspired by my family’s own crowded holiday get-togethers, but until I started meeting my readers, I had no idea just how many people have actually slept in bathtubs!
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What am I doing now?
I now work as a freelance writer, teacher, and marketing consultant. The different parts of my work all feed my passion for children’s literature: by writing my own new books, by teaching writing at the Loft Literary Center, by consulting with other writers about their manuscripts, by visiting schools to talk to students about writing, and by helping other writers market their books through Winding Oak Literary Services.
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What I do for fun
Most of my vacations are unplanned road trips—they always lead to unexpected adventures: attending the Sturgis (South Dakota) motorcycle rally by mistake, surviving a bomb scare in Iowa, sleeping in a hotel conference room in Wisconsin because a lumberjack convention had booked all the other rooms. These experiences have added to my collection of snow globes from around the world. I also like listening to people’s stories, floating in a cold northern lake, planting flowers, the scent of the North Woods, photography, the first snowfall, ice cream, mystery novels, twins, playing with my nephews and nieces, old books, and poetry, especially the kind that rhymes. And my family can turn any occasion into lots of fun—especially if we can wear funny hats!
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Geographical roots
I was born in Texas—my grandpa called me “The Waco Kid”—but I mostly grew up in small Minnesota towns where the school bus regularly got stuck in massive snow banks. Some of my best memories are from my elementary school years in Bemidji, Minnesota: ice fishing, sled dog races, hockey games, baton twirling, bike riding, the Paul Bunyan Amusement Park, and the Bemidji Public Library. Wherever I lived, I spent a lot of my time reading books and then convincing the neighborhood kids to act out the stories with me. I was definitely the boss of the neighborhood!
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Where I live now
My family now spends as much of the short summertime as we can at Green Lake near tiny Spicer, Minnesota. But I normally live in a great urban neighborhood only five minutes from downtown Minneapolis. Sometimes Pileated Woodpeckers visit my birdfeeder, looking like small dinosaurs that somehow missed the extinction. I have two orange-and-white cats: Rufus, who thinks he’s a dog, and Mutzi, who is tailless and runs like a bunny. They often sit in my upstairs office while I write at my laptop; Mutzi especially loves to sit right on the mouse on my keyboard.
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