My Favorites
Words
I love words. Like most writers, I collect them and jot them down in notebooks, little tablets, napkins, journals, whatever. My #1 favorite word for its meaning is "Imagine." My #1 favorite word to say is "Thwart." It's fun to say. Give it a try. It tickles a little...seriously. Email me your favorite words (either for meaning or saying) and I'll start a Readers' Favorite Word List.
Storytelling & Dolls
My
love of words started before I could read. I spent hours playing in my room
making up stories for my dolls. Here I am with two of my favorite dolls: I'm
holding Annabella when I was four (Mom sewed us the matching dresses) and
with Sweet Sue when I was eight. My dolls were a terrific audience when I
performed my first storytellings; maybe they didn't applaud, but they all
smiled which was very encouraging. Today, I don't have dolls to play with,
but I do have a lot of beautiful grandkids!
Reading
The first most important discovery of my life was learning how to read. It changed everything! I still loved to make up my own stories, but now I could enjoy what others had imagined, too. I spent hours curled up with my nose inside a book. And looky here: I still enjoy spending time with my nose inside a book! If you do, too, email
me a picture of you with your nose inside a book.
Daydreaming
In these pictures I am hard at work daydreaming. Seriously. Daydreaming is
an important part of artist's life. When you daydream, you make time for
Possibility. You relax and think and connect to where ideas and inspirations
hang out,
in an imaginary place I like to call "The Cosmic Goo". So go for a walk
or listen to music or stand by a tree or sit on a rocky beach and daydream.
See where your thoughts lead you.
Teaching
For
many years I was a teacher. I taught preschool, kindergarten, first, second,
and third grades. One year I taught fifth grade and another year
I taught at a middle school. For two years I taught at Sylvan Learning
in Redding.
No matter the age of my students, my favorite thing to teach them was Language
Arts-how to use words in reading, writing, spelling and performing. Here
I am with one of my second grade classes after we finished our Fairy Tale
unit.
We had read many fairy tales, written our own and performed one as an original
play. Notice the bulletin board behind us about the Writing Steps. In the
next picture I am dressed up as Viola Swamp (from the popular book "Miss
Nelson Is Missing" by Harry Allard) for Favorite Story Character Day.
Writing
When my husband and I moved to Maui, Hawaii, in 1997, I abandoned teaching and began to market my writings in earnest. After many, many rejections, one of my manuscripts, "The Blue Roses", hit the jackpot by winning Lee & Low Books first New Voices Award in the year 2000.
A traditional Cherokee
myth says that the first stories came to people in dreams. "The Blue Roses"
is based on a dream I had after my Grandpa Edward Dargis passed away. I
was 30 years old at the time, about to have my third child, and couldn't
travel the
long distance for his funeral. I was heartbroken. One night, Grandpa came
to me in a dream. He stood in a beautiful garden, which had been his real-life
hobby. Grandpa told me he was happy and to stop being so sad. It sounds
strange, but I awoke with a new-found sense of contentment, very much how
my character,
Rosalie, does in the book.
Later I thought that because death is a hard
thing to explain to children, wouldn't gardening be a great way to explain
the circle
of life and death? Wouldn't it help kids to understand, to give them comfort
and hope? These thoughts led to my book. In the first picture, Grandpa
and I are standing in front of one of his gardens. I am wearing my First
Communion dress and veil. In the next picture I am sharing "The Blue Roses"
at my former high school, Bishop Feehan High in Attleboro MA.
Performing
I have posted many pictures of my storytelling performances in the Program
section of this website. Besides writing children's books and performing stories
for kids, I also write grown-up stuff, mostly poetry. The first picture was
taken in April, 2006, at the 5th Annual Pleasanton (CA.) Poetry Festival when
two of my poems, "Pale Eyes, Empty" and "Cedar Songs, Left Behind" won
prizes. In this picture I am receiving the awards from former U. S. Poet laureate,
the renowned poet and my personal poetry hero, Billy Collins. In the next picture
I am at Redding's Old City Hall Arts Center with my friend and talented musician,
John Brandeburg. I am reading the poem, "Cedar Songs, Left Behind" and
John is accompanying me with his interpretation in music. Both of the poems
are
included in my poetry chapbook, WomanSong, which can be found in the My
Store section.
Links to Friends' Websites
www.healing-stories.com
www.flashbacksunlimited.com
America Writes For Kids!