Why I Started Writing:

I fell in love with stories before I could read or write, by listening to them on the BBC Children’s Story Hour.  Every night my brothers and I would crouch in front of the radio and listen to an amazing array of actors and actresses telling us stories—and so I fell in love with the music of language and the magical way words could paint pictures in my mind.  Decades later after moving to America from Scotland, I started to write my own stories, mainly as a way to deal with the homesickness that I felt—the act of writing is so therapeutic and is a great way to heal the hurts in one’s heart.  It is also a great way to foster a sense of wonder and gratitude for the gift of life. As E.B.White said, All I want to say in books, all I ever wanted to say is, I love the world.This nugget of wisdom is why I continue with my writing journey—I am constantly trying to share with my readers or listeners, some bolt of beauty, some glimmer of hope, or some jolt of joy that has touched my heart.   

Authors Who Have Influenced Me:

Like most authors, I have been an avid reader my whole life and so I have been influenced by so many authors, it would be hard to keep the list short enough to post here. But I can perhaps pick the one author who has definitely had the most profound influence on me. The first book I ever owned (no one owned many books back then in Scotland—we went to the library) was The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis.  My uncle gave it to me as a birthday gift, and I spurned it immediately on account of that pesky word, wardrobe.  As an ardent lover of fairy tales, I simply could not accept the notion that something as mundane and perfunctory as a wardrobe had any business being in a story I wanted to read.  But of course, when I finally succumbed, one rainy Saturday, to opening the first pages, I fell in love with Narnia, a land where animals talked, trees walked, and a lion called Aslan laid down his life for his friends.  Years later, I realized what C.S. Lewis had taught me, both as a teller of tales and as a pilgrim on this earth, is that be it a wardrobe or a railway platform, we need the ordinary to transport us to the extraordinary—to lead us into the wonder of Narnia or Harry Potterland.  Now as a children’s picture book author, I am constantly trying to find the grace, and beauty, and wonder that simmers beneath the ordinariness of our daily lives—and that is what I write about.  Thank you, Mr. Lewis! 

Books I Have Written:

The Giant King (Child Welfare League of America, 2003) 

Inventor McGregor (FSG, 2006)  

Magnus Maximus, A Marvelous Measurer (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2010) 

Raj the Bookstore Tiger (Charlesbridge, 2011)  

The Sandal Artist (Pelican, 2012) 

Happy Mamas Fall 2016 Child Welfare League of America 

Happy Papas—June 2018 CWLA  

Jesús, Mary and Joseph—Coming—October 2021 

What I'm Working On Now:

I am working on a picture book that explores the words of Ecclesiastes 3—“For everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven,” from the perspective of a young child.  It is one of my favorite scripture passages as I always find it so calming and comforting and filled with hope too—seems like something we all might relish in times like these.  And since I also host my own storytelling podcast, I am always busy adapting a new folktale or fairytale to share on that platform.