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When I was growing up, I never thought I'd become a writer. I thought only people who wrote stories became writers. And I didn't write stories. But I was always drawing and writing something. I wrote letters to toy companies, wrote and illustrated comics, kept a diary, and loved writing skits and parodies of songs. 

 

While I'd always loved school, middle school was a pretty miserable time for me, and I needed a way out. I wrote an idea for my favorite TV sitcom, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and sent it to one of the producers with the wild hope that I'd land a job on the show by the end of algebra. As it happens, this did not happen. But for the 1973-1974 season, the show's producer and I corresponded, and it was thrilling to think of my letters traveling all the way to Hollywood. Surely in Studio City, there was no gym class.

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I was lucky to have parents who made books a big part of my life. I never outgrew my love for children's books and after college in NYC, I moved to Boston and worked in children's book publishing. Later, I worked as a children's book reviewer and as an illustrator for an educational publisher. I didn't start writing books for kids until I was raising my two daughters, and in 2007, I received my MFA in Writing for Children & Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts. 

 

I now live in Washington, DC, and when I'm not at my desk drawing or writing, I enjoy volunteering at the Library of Congress, reading, seeing theater, and taking walks, especially ones that wind up at a good bakery.

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