Biography

I might as well get the weird thing out of the way right up front: I have lived in the same house almost all my life—from the time I was a few days old to now (and that's a lo-o-o-ng time). Except for a year in Washington, DC and a few months in Los Angeles, I've always lived in this house. (Okay, end of weird stuff.) Truth is, it's home, and I have always felt it has given me some roots. When I return home from a trip—and I love to travel—it always feels great to get home.

I also love the ocean. I love the way it constantly changes, sometimes soft and glassy-smooth, sometimes angry and dangerous. The ocean pulls at me like a magnet, and I am lucky enough to have a home on the coast of Maine, where the sea is always close. The ocean has inspired some of my stories, and my Maine home is my favorite place to write.

From our earliest years, my brother, two sisters, and I learned about sharing and cooperating. We learned about helping others and standing up for what you believe in. In addition, each of us was encouraged to find the things we loved to do. I tried baseball, archery, tap dancing, piano, trumpet, art, and theater. I still love music (as a listener, not a performer), and I like baseball, art and theater. Some of the other things (trumpet playing and tap dancing, for example), not so much.

We also learned about having fun. My mom and dad both had great senses of humor, and when our big extended families (grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins) got together for holidays and other special events, we always laughed a lot! Those were also the times when I really started to learn about story-telling because someone was always telling a story, especially my grandfather. He was full of stories that he always claimed were true. The stories he told amazed us or made us laugh—or both!

Once my grampa worked as a crew member on a boat. The crew thought the cook was terrible. "He's trying to poison us," they'd say, but the captain refused to do anything about it. Now the cook always had a big pot on the stove and he put all kinds of leftovers in it. He claimed he was making soup, but if it was a soup, everyone on the crew thought it was a terrible-tasting soup! So one day ol' Jim, another crew member, put a pair of filthy athletic shoes in the pot. Then a few days later when that nasty soup was served, the crew rebelled. Finally the captain made the cook take the pot up on deck and empty it out. And there in a pile of yucky leftovers was a pair of sparkling clean shoes! (Eeew!) The captain was furious, and put the cook ashore. Finally the crew got their revenge for all the terrible meals they'd been served—and the cook got his "just deserts," so to speak.

We were amazed and laughing at that one! I think those family gatherings were where I really began to learn about telling stories. By the time I was in fifth and sixth grades, my friends and sisters were putting on shows or writing “plays” for marionettes and other kinds of puppets (which our moms helped us make). When I got into high school, I got my own movie camera. I made little adventure films or mini-documentaries. Still, I wasn't thinking I wanted to be a writer. That notion wouldn't come until much later.

After college, I spent a year at yet another school, this one in Washington, DC, and during that year I wrote two scripts for a kid's television program at the local PBS station. And that changed all my ideas about what I wanted to do. I returned home, and a big department store hired me to write and produce television and radio commercials. The commercials I created were seen on every TV station in New England. This is where I learned to say things simply and clearly. Most TV commercials are thirty seconds long. If an announcer or actor talks for all those thirty seconds, they only have seventy-five words to tell the story! I learned every word and every image on the screen counts!

After writing commercials for a while, I started freelancing; that is, working on my own. I was hired by production companies and TV stations that needed help with writing. One thing led to another, and soon I won an Emmy award for a series of pubic service announcements, which I wrote for a Boston TV station. I even got a chance to work on NBC television series about a private detective!

Writing has given me opportunities I could never have imagined. For example, writing assignments have taken me all across the United States and Canada. I've written and filmed in Mexico, El Salvador, the Caribbean, Germany, England, Ireland, France, and the Middle East. I got to do some pretty exciting things. Once, for example, I drove a car around Talladaga SuperSpeedway at 140 miles an hour! (That was amazing!) I also got to interview famous authors, senators, religious leaders, and a First Lady. I even spent a day with an astronaut who walked on the moon! It was a pretty exciting life! To top it all off, I wrote a novel (a spy story for grownups) that was in bookstores throughout the US, South America, and Australia.

Later, I became interested in writing for young people, especially middle readers—kids between the ages of ten to fourteen or so. (Know anyone like that?) At the same time, I became interested in helping young people in that age range become better writers, and so in 2006, I was lucky enough to become a sixth grade English teacher. The years I've spent teaching have been some of the best ever! My students were awesome, and I hope I taught them as much as they taught me! All during that time, I kept writing. Sometimes I have been able to share my stories with students. It's always exciting because they ask great questions and make awesome predictions!

Now, I'm ready to share these stories with more readers. I hope you'll be one of them!