Why I Started Writing:

As a retired teacher, I always enjoyed teaching writing to students. As a retired principal, I always encouraged my students to work hard, set goals, and discover their gifts. Now that I have a little more time with my retirement (kind of), I decided to finally connect my keyboard to the ideas floating around in my brain. My own love of writing started to emerge at a very personal level. I began to embrace new writing goals and working hard as I encouraged my students to do.

Authors Who Have Influenced Me:

Going back to my childhood, Beverly Cleary (the Henry and Ribsy and Ramona books) and Carolyn Haywood (the Eddie and Betsy books) unquestionably advanced my love of reading. I would save my babysitting money and purchase these authors’ books for fifty cents, and my childhood book collection grew. In my adult years, my personal love of reading, later extending to reading to my children and grandchildren, flourished.  Today, Patricia Polacco, renowned children’s author, has influenced my desire to preserve family stories through blogging and writing my first children’s book.

Books I Have Written:

Talitha, the Traveling Skirt, is the first book I have written.  To create a fun tale for young children, I personified a little skirt that has traveled around in our family for three generations, more than seventy years.  The name Talitha means “little girl” and comes from the book of Mark in the New Testament. Three more "traveling" books have followed, all centering around objects in my family that have traveled through three generations: Harvey, the Traveling Harmonia, Roxie, the Traveling Rocker, and Angelina, the Traveling Angel. In addition to my children's books, Elk Lake has published Unintended Hero, a WWII book inspired by the true story of my father's experiences and battles in the Pacific Theater.

What I'm Working On Now:

In addition to blogging on my website, writing devotions for Guideposts, and submitting articles to "The Country Register", I am currently working on another historical novel, inspired by my grandmother's true events when she immigrated to America as a peasant from Poland in the early 1920s.