About ME

I was born in Boston, MA, into a family of book lovers. When I was five, we moved to central Connecticut where we lived on the side of what seemed a small mountain. My dog and I were explorers; we discovered an old quarry and woods filled with mica-covered boulders to climb. And I was a Girl Scout. We camped in backyards, fields, and made pancakes in the rain. Hillsides were dotted with cows, sheep, goats, horses, and there was a big working barn where my friends and I liked to play. My favorite books were about animals (Misty of Chincoteague; Born Free; Socks by Beverly Cleary which was illustrated by my aunt Bette Darwin), historical fiction (Island of the Blue Dolphins; Witch of Blackbird Pond) and biographies. My mother was our school librarian, and in fourth grade I started at one end of the biography shelf (Jane Addams) and read straight through to the end. People’s personal stories have always fascinated me.

At Syracuse University, I studied magazine journalism and English literature. I reveled in the romantic poets, Shakespeare, and Chaucer when read aloud in Middle English by our professor. I loved my writing classes and even sold a short article to Popular Science magazine about a new chemical developed to stabilize wood cells. But in looking back, I realize that I was greatly influenced by a science professor, an expert on inland aquatic ecosystems. On field trips, we sampled water quality in nearby Onondaga Lake, a polluted body of water ringed by industrial plants. So, what happened on my first professional job will come as no surprise. Months into my work as a news reporter in Chicago, I urgently phoned my editor to report that the Chicago River had turned GREEN! Inside scoop: I didn’t know that dyeing the river green was a Chicago St. Patrick’s Day tradition. Drop the story, he said, there’s a fire to cover. To this day, I remain suspicious about the green dye.

Next, I spent several years as a writer and editor at the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. Basically, I “translated” the fascinating but technical work of scientists and engineers into understandable English.

Later, reading with my own young children reminded me of my love of children’s books—and I began to write articles for children’s magazines including Ranger Rick and National Geographic World. I have written several picture books as well as a mid-grade nonfiction about wildfire. My latest project, a biography of a quirky 18th century scientist, was published in October 2019 by Norton Young Readers.

These days I split my time between Albany, New York and Cape Cod, Massachusetts, with my husband Jim, a forester. We love to hike and go snowshoeing.