Hi and welcome to my website!

I've loved putting words and pictures together as long as I can remember But it took me a long time to realize words and pictures could be a profession. In fact, I went to music college first because music is my first love. Instead of practicing piano for hours like I was supposed to, however, I drew all over the margins of my music. I finally got a clue and entered a real art school, the wonderful Parsons School of Design where I studied with Maurice Sendak. He was not only a great picture book creator but a great teacher of how to make words and pictures go together well. And when he spoke about the music in picture books, I knew exactly what he meant.

I love creating funny picture books for older readers and quiet books for younger ones. Hogula, Dread Pig of Night, the first I both wrote and illustrated, was included in the Society of Illustrators’ Annual “Original Art” show. My next (The Moon Came Down on Milk Street) was inspired by Fred Rogers after 9/11 and was called by a reviewer one of the "best 'crises' books ever published" for children. Other books written and illustrated for Holt Books for Young Readers are Very Boring Alligator (a CBC “Best Book”) and Yonderfel’s Castle. For Philomel I illustrated And Twelve Chinese Acrobats by Jane Yolen. I had the wonderful job of being the Staff Artist for Cricket Magazine for many years and was lucky enough to win the Don Freeman grant for book illustration and the Ezra Jack Keats fellowship to study at the Kerlan Collection / University of Minnesota. I'm honored that original materials for my books are now housed at the Kerlan for others to study. Lately, I've had fun creating a series of S.T.E.M. comic books with the dynamic "Water Ninjas" duo. They can be found and read in their entirety online at www.fairfaxwater.org/comics I'm currently working on my first graphic novel.

Feel free to write me directly here. And thanks for visiting!