Me at age 4 with a newly emerged black swallowtail butterfly we raised from a caterpillar
As a kid, I loved rocks. I collected rocks and minerals of all sorts. I was probably the only kid in my city that belonged to a rock club that was actually about rocks not rock music! My fascination with crystals led me to college to earn a master’s degree in electrical engineering with a specialty in semiconductors. Semiconductors are crystals! I still can’t walk by a cool rock without checking it out.
After school, my career has been like a cat with many lives. I started out as a semiconductor engineer making microprocessors. After a move to Seattle, I worked in early warehouse operations with a now well known internet bookseller. Next I embarked on my wonderful and neverending job as a mom to three boys, including homeschooling my oldest son most of the way through elementary school. A lifelong love of reading combined with seeing the world through my kids’ eyes, inspired my current career in writing and illustrating children’s books.
During the summer, our family of five lives high in the Sierra Nevada mountains in a rustic cabin complete with an outhouse. The rest of the year we are in the very urban Silicon Valley. This juxtaposition of the rustic life and the technological life offers many opportunities for storytelling. From katydids to crystalline computer chips I find inspiration and amazement. I hope this comes through in my stories.
You never know when life will blow you in a new direction!
Grumpy frog we met at our cabin after a rainstorm