I live in Southwest Ohio with my husband, two little boys, and doggo, Balto. My writing has been published in Kenyon Review Online as well as in the National Magazine Award–winning Print and on MindBodyGreen.com. My stories for children have placed 5th in the 2024 Kids’ Choice Kidlit Writing Contest and received an Honorable Mention in the 2021 PBParty Contest. I’m an active member of SCBWI.
I graduated from Wilmington College with a degree in English and work in corporate communications. When I’m not working or spending time with my family, I’m learning from my talented and inspiring critique partners, reading and studying my favorite stories, drafting and revising, entering contests and challenges, and taking copious notes during workshops and webinars through SCBWI, Children’s Book Insider, The Institute of Children’s Literature, Writing Barn, Good Story Company, and more.
Other Things About Me
- Writing kid lit is the thing I’m willing to do, and continue to do, even as I’m “failing” at it.
- Like Pat Zietlow Miller did for years, I work in corporate communications. Why, how did you guess? I do daydream about following her footsteps to full-time children’s book author. 🙂
- I published some short stories and creative nonfiction in my 20s. But I wrote my first picture book – for my oldest son – at 8 months pregnant. I’ll spare you the majority of my Microsoft Paint illustrations, but below is one of our rescue doggy, Balto. (Don’t worry – I’ll leave all future illustrations to professional artists.)
- Seeing others express their creativity is fascinating and inspiring to me. I will forever be the person who sits up front and grins at conference speakers the whole time. (See above.)
- My formerly abandoned elementary school has been turned into an amazing arts center. I’ve never been prouder of my hometown!
- I gifted a copy of The Night Gardener (by the Fan Brothers) to two people I’d never actually met before. (As a thank-you for their helping our community come together.)
- My husband saved a woman’s life at a gas station. Now, every month is CPR Awareness Month in our house. It’s always a good time to learn CPR!
- We like crafts, science, and books in our house. A lot.
- I once was lost in a parking garage with my colleagues and Chip Kidd, the designer/creator of the “Jurassic Park” movie logo. That was somehow peak coolness for me. (See below.)
- More recently, I got lost in the woods while geocaching. I had just finished the first season of Stranger Things. So naturally, I spent that hour convinced I was trapped in the Upside Down. Eventually I burst from a tree line and startled a picnicking family.
- My writing space has come a long way. From apartment walls and homemade standing desks to my dream creative space.
- The biggest thing I learned while studying to become a certified life coach is the importance of brain maintenance: Paying attention to our thoughts, questioning them, and deciding how we want to think, feel, and show up in the world. (Would have been nice to learn that in school!)
- I’m the oldest of my four siblings. I don’t know what was happening in this photo, but I feel like it captures us pretty well.
- I have some sort of ultra-rare keratin disease that keeps me intimately familiar with a fear of the unknown. It’s certainly served as an opportunity to practice processing negative emotion. I’ve also met some amazing people because of it, like those who pour their hearts into the Pachyonychia Congenita Project and taught me that a doctor who tells you “I don’t know” is doing you a favor.
- I spent a summer volunteering in Belfast, Northern Ireland at Quaker Cottage, a cross-community family support center that provided services for some of the disadvantaged areas of north and west Belfast.
- I believe strongly in equity and the importance of whole health for every single one of us.
- I care deeply about encouraging emotional health in developing minds.
- I want all children to know, deep in their hearts, that they are powerful in their own lives. That no feeling is too big for them to handle. That no problem is too big for them to solve. And at the same time, that there is so much good in the world, so many people who will help them, and so many ways they can create change.
