I can’t remember a time when I didn’t love to write. When I was a kid, I used to write stories on the scratch paper my father brought home from his office. I wrote about talking pillows and magic spells and whatever else my imagination conjured. In school, I took the first opportunity that came along to enroll in an actual writing class. It was seventh-grade journalism, and I remained involved with newspapers one way or another for the next 40 years.

I grew up in Southern California, in one of those suburban housing tracts that sprang up after World War II to meet the needs of young veterans starting out in their new civilian lives. My father was such a veteran.

I went to several colleges, thanks to fluctuations in our family finances and my oft-changing educational goals, and graduated from California State University, Long Beach with a degree in journalism.

Some years later, parenthood gave me a new direction: I wanted to write children’s books.

A word about that, while I’m on the subject. Writing children’s books takes a lot of work. Don’t believe what you see on TV or in the movies, where someone pulls out a yellow legal pad, scribbles a story about some cute animals, mails it out, and receives a fat check from a publisher two weeks later. It doesn’t work that way. (Celebrity authors are a whole different story – see my Rants, Raves, and Miscellaneous Musings archive.)

With work, though, I found success. My first three books, published in the 1990s, were nonfiction for high school students. They won recognition from the New York Public Library, the Child Study Council, and the Society of School Librarians International. Then I turned to what I really wanted to do, which was write fiction. Happily, that has worked well too. My first novel, a mystery for 8- to 12-year-olds, was “O’Dwyer & Grady Starring in Acting Innocent.” It was nominated by the Mystery Writers of America for a 2003 Edgar Allen Poe Award. I followed it with a sequel, “O’Dwyer & Grady Starring in Tough Act to Follow.” (See The Books for reviews and excerpts.)

The other thing parenthood led me into was school volunteering. I’ve spent many hours peddling pizza, chaperoning field trips, proctoring tests, you name it. But I’ve also been able to bring my journalism and writing experience to school. In addition to giving presentations and writing workshops, I shepherded and advised an elementary school student newspaper for two years, then launched a middle school student paper and led that for three years.

These days I’m hard at work on a novel for teens and a nonfiction book for youngish adults. I also do freelance writing and editing, as well as writing residencies and workshops. Now that my youngest son is in college, my school volunteer adventures have ended. Whenever I can, I dabble in theatrical ventures, such as small-scale plays at a women’s college and the local Renaissance Faire. And I’m learning how to make audio documentaries.

I live in Raleigh, N.C., with my marvelous husband, one of my two brilliant and interesting sons, and our completely goofy yellow Lab. (“Goofy Lab” – that’s redundant, isn’t it?)

I look at the world and the people in it, and I see stories everywhere just waiting to be written. That’s why I am now doing writing residencies in schools – so I can help students learn to look around and see what fun they can have when they sit down to write.