It's deeply gratifying to publish a picture book and realize it may delight a child, even a child I don't know and will never meet. I fell in love with picture books when I babysat my four nieces for nine years. We'd walk to the library and leave with an armload of books. I enjoyed the books too – sometimes more than the kids did! Like many adults, I thought I could write a better story than some I had read. I began writing and submitting manuscripts. I never guessed it would take thirty years to see one of my stories published.

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My debut picture book, Kitten and the Night Watchman, won the Ezra Jack Keats Award and the Margaret Wise Brown Prize. It was named a best book of the year by The Boston Globe, Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly, and BookPage. Stanley's Secret and Ethan and the Strays followed. I am a cat lover, amateur tap dancer, and life-long Chicagoan who has worked as a warehouseman, mail handler, laborer, and night watchman. I am now a full-time children's book author!