I attended the Audie Awards on May 29th in New York City to honor the audiobooks judged to be the best of the previous year. This is a prestigious gala sponsored by the Audio Publishing Association, and the price of a ticket is an extravagance. Luckily, being a judge has its perks and I was given one of the limited number available to those of us who spent hours listening to the contenders. I'm not complaining. I love listening to audiobooks. The suspense leading up to the event was killing me. Would my favorite book win? Which children's and teen books would get chosen as the best? I was listening to all the finalists prior to the event and had completed two more on my drive from Ohio to New York. Would I get to meet some of my favorite narrators? Would I be in the company of very famous celebrities nominated for their work on audiobooks? Meryl Streep had several nominations, as did Billy Crystal, Kate Winslet, and Jake Gyllenhaal. Then news was released that Libba Bray, a favorite Young Adult author of mine for her Gemma Doyle Trilogy, would be the emcee. So excited! I loved her narration in 2012 of her own book Beauty Queens, for which she won an Audie Award.
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I remember the excitement of visiting the public library as a child. The magic and suspense of reading favorites like The Velvet Room and The Secret Garden tugged at my imagination. Biographies of George Washington Carver and Betsy Ross allowed me to see the lives of those who came before me and to appreciate their accomplishments. Poetry collections like my favorite The Tall Book of Poems, which I took with me on sleepovers, introduced me to a range of poetry where I could consider how the placement and rhythm of words affected your mood – sometimes bouncy, other times melancholy. Plus, I really loved the way that book felt in my small hands. My goal in writing children’s books, I think, is an attempt to recreate those feelings, those early years of reading books where everything seemed possible.
I received an M.F.A. in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Hamline University and won the Karen and Philip Cushman Late Bloomer Award from SCBWI. I worked as a Children's Librarian for 20 years and still prefer to read books written for young people. I have two Cavapoo dogs named Prince Albert and Daisy Wu, and a black kitten named Mortimer. I am married and split time between homes with my husband Rod in Dayton, OH and in Cadiz, KY where we enjoy our pontoon boat on Lake Barkley.
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