![]() ![]() In the winter there's cross country skiing out behind my house. For a break I go for a walk with the dog or the donkey (they both have red raincoats for rainy days) or I dig in the garden. On days that I'm not teaching, I write all day. ![]() I write first thing every morning-sometimes I even eat my breakfast at my desk. Now I live with my family in the woods in Western Massachusetts. (I had a pet salamander named Eggbert and a parakeet named Albert Einstein.) I grew up in New York City and always wanted to have a dog, but they weren't allowed in my apartment house. If Ever I Return Again was inspired by letters written by a real girl who lived a century ago. Electra and the Charlotte Russe is based on a story my mother told me when I was a little girl about her own childhood. Some come from my children and their friends, or from kids I meet when I visit schools. Some ideas for my stories come from my own childhood. All my books afterwards have been illustrated by other artists, including Ted Lewin, Nancy Poydar, Michael Garland and Kathryn Brown. The illustrations are photographs I took of Austin and our standard poodle, Melly.Since the story is about a dog who runs away, and Melly was a dog who really did run away, it was a trick to get pictures of her. I had him re-tell me the story in his own words so that the narrator would sound like a real kid. My first published book, That Dog Melly was co-authored with my son, Austin. ![]()
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