A few random tidbits about me...
(because traditional bios are a bit of a snooze)
* 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 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. This was the official beginning of my writing career.
* Around this 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 middle 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 latest book: “Bella and Stella Come Home,” released in November of 2010, and I have more picture books and a chapter book in the works as well.
* I'm so in love with my hometown book store—Barrington Books—that I keep inventing jobs for myself in order to be able to hang around all those books and nice people. Past positions have included: "bookseller" and "that story hour lady." Currently I serve as their on-staff writer, blogger and event planner, and it's the most fun job-they-let-me-make-up-for-myself yet!
* When not writing, reading to kidos, or hobnobbing with authors at the coolest indie bookstore in Rhode Island, I’m most likely 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.