I live in Clovis, California. It’s a nice place to live. One of my favorite things about where I live is that it is only an hour away from beautiful hiking trails and gorgeous lakes. I have a wonderful family, a fantastic husband, three awesome children, four fun step-children, two future son-in-laws, and three pretty cool cats who love to lounge lazily in the sun every afternoon.
My baby picture is below, but which one is me? Pretty hard to tell isn’t it? I was born an identical twin. I grew up in Southern California. In case you’re still wondering, who ‘Annie’, is I’m the one on the right, the too eager and curious looking one. I can honestly say that such traits haven’t left me and for that I’m thankful.
My baby picture is below, but which one is me? Pretty hard to tell isn’t it? I was born an identical twin. I grew up in Southern California. In case you’re still wondering, who ‘Annie’, is I’m the one on the right, the too eager and curious looking one. I can honestly say that such traits haven’t left me and for that I’m thankful.
As an elementary age student, I enjoyed writing. With the encouragement of my fifth grade teacher, I entered an essay contest sponsored by the American Legion Hall. I tied for first place with my identical twin sister. The judges couldn’t make up their minds on whose essay was best so they decided to give first place to two essays. They didn’t know that the first place winners were identical twins because our names were not given to the judges beforehand. We were only identified by a number. When my sister and I heard our names called at a special assembly, everyone was shocked, including us!
In addition to writing essays, I also liked coming up with creative stories. One of my first stories as a third grade student, was about a toothbrush named Charlie who hated going into stinky mouths. When I read my story aloud in class, my fellow students laughed at my character ,Charlie. It was then I thought maybe I had a little writing talent.
I’m often asked if I ever dreamed of being a writer. The answer is I dreamed of being a teacher and a mom. After college, I realized my teaching dream and I taught Junior High school for a couple of years. It wasn’t until years later when I was given an opportunity to write a children’s book on heroes. I took the challenge and in 2002, my first book was published and since then I’ve gone on to write another book in the series and several more books for other people who paid me to be their ‘ghost writer’.
I love writing stories, especially about heroes from history who were always great champions of good character and a never ending source of exciting adventures. I’m a huge fan of kids becoming ‘Character Champions’ , just like my heroes, Daniel Boone and Harriet Tubman, from my first two books in my Heroical Storicals series.