I grew up in Queens, NY but spent every summer I can remember at my Grandma Rose’s house in the Adirondacks.  As a result, I was equally at home riding the subway or in a canoe on Lake George.

My mom wrote for a beauty magazine when I was little.  She’d occasionally bring me to her office in Manhattan (back when they still used typewriters) and while she ticked off copy for articles like “How To Repair A Broken Lipstick” or “10 Ways To Add Zest To Your Love Life,” I passed the time scribbling my stories and poems on a yellow legal pad she gave me. It was the official beginning of my writing career.

This was about the time I decided I would be a wildly famous writer or actress when I grew up—preferably both.

One of my favorite pastimes back then was regaling my family with “one-woman shows”…written, directed and starring… me.  I’d still be apologizing for this if it weren’t for the “karmic comeuppance” I’ve received in the form of my 5-year-old daughter, who seems to have inherited my flair for the dramatic.

At some point, I must have dismissed writing and acting as too frivolous, because I graduated from college with a degree in “Organizational Communication and Technology."

My first job was creating sales videos for large corporate meetings. 

“Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.”

I now recognize “frivolity” as a vastly underrated career attribute.

I met my husband at a children’s book signing.  

Just after our second daughter was born, I decided to pull out the old legal pad again and give writing a picture book a go.  The result was “Pigs Love Potatoes.” (Never underestimate the power of sleep deprivation on creativity, especially when writing about a family of potato peel-wielding pigs.)

Those picture-perfect piggies in “Pigs Love Potatoes” were created by my husband—talented children’s book illustrator, Christopher Denise.

Our next book: “Bella And Stella Come Home,” will be out in November of this year, and I have more picture books and a chapter book in the works as well.

I host weekly story hours at my hometown bookstore, Barrington Books, and write a column “Bookmarks” for the East Bay Newspapers.

When not writing or reading to children, I’m probably cooking, gardening, carting little girls to and fro, or my favorite: strolling the beach near our house with Chris and the kids... thinking up ideas for new stories.