Author of over 400 Books for Children and Adults
The last of four music books I did for Boyds Mills. Adam was wonderful to work with, shipping me off the simple arrangements which I then played on the piano. We figured if I could sight read them, ANYONE could! I picked the songs, wrote the historical notes
One of my favorite Scandanavian folk tales is “The Cat of the Dovrfell” and when Linda Graves, a member of WMIG, the Western Massachusetts Illustrators’ (which I’d started years ago) showed a folktale picture of a Finnish/Danish girl in full costume with a white bear cub at one of our meetings, I found my inspiriation for this retelling.
Most of my adult short fantasy/sf fiction has never been put in a single book. I have four story collections–Tales of Wonder, Dragonfield, Merlin’s Booke, and Storyteller, plus a chapbook that are all out of print. But my more recent stories
I first met the editor, John Patrick Pazdziora as he was finishing his doctorate at St Andrews University in English Literature. My friend Debby brought him, his lovely wife Rebecca, and their amazing then two year old daughter Fern to tea at my house. We began a conversation about his work
Based on a short story of the same name written for Jessica Amanda Salmonson’s anthology “Heroic Visions,” Sister Light and its companion White Jenna comprise one single book. Published in 1988, the two would be put together in the late ’90s as The Books of Great Alta. (My husband always
This original folk tale uses both the Piegan mythic stories about how the horse came to the Piegan (Blackfeet) people and also some historical matter. There are full notes on the last page. It is always tricky business, writing in another culture. I heard that one Native spokesman said that “She has an authentic voice.”
I am a city girl by birth, a country girl by choice. Born in New York City, I can still thrill to some things about the skyscraper life. This anthology of poems–a few by me but most by other writers–covers a lot of city living, from graffiti
It took about eight months to track down the lullaby rhymes for this picture book. Some I got from books, others from my husband’s graduate students and international colleagues. I wanted the rhymes in
Heidi and I actually wrote this as a companion book to YOU NEST HERE WITH ME which Harcourt bought speedily. But the editor didn’t want it as it seemed too close to their perennial bestseller TIME FOR BED by Mem Fox and-yes-Jane Dyer. So we sent it to Harper, to the marvelous Maria Modugno
I wrote this book as a favor to Ruth Sanderson, the artist, because the packager, Ariel, was having trouble writing the book in-house. Ruth had almost completed the paintings when it became clear that someone would have to retell the story who could write around the art work. My husband