I’ve loved stories my entire life

Before I could read or knew how to print my name, I scribbled on paper and blabbed as my imagination spilled onto the page …

My favorite reads and most memorable children’s books, shows, and films are too many to list. But what I can say is memories of those characters, worlds, and adventures live long in my heart and are reflected in my work. A wooden toy puppet coming to life and the elderly crafter who made him. Fairy Godmothers who make beautiful things to wear for modest and unsuspecting heroines. Talking teapots and stuffed animals who enchant a main character’s journey.

I see shiny reminders of them all in my books. 

Stories made hard times in life easier somehow. Alternate worlds, where magic is an option; where unworldly possibilities can be made a new reality. I longed for my daydreams to be real. Writing books makes that so. 

Stories like Narnia, The Hobbit, Inkheart, and Harry Potter reminded me of the types of books I wanted to write. I’ve always had a passion to build settings that my own readers would enjoy escaping into, like Hogwarts, the Enterprise, a bedroom with a wardrobe or an unexplored rabbit hole.

I’ve spent my lifetime, since childhood, imagining elements of my TradeMagic saga. From the earliest memories of Santa Claus flying in to deliver gifts for good kids to the hope a heroic Jedi can bring to a galaxy. I’ve taken memories I had as a kid, cruising the Rhine River and seeing castles on mountaintops overhead, and let them inspire me. 

I hope that my work gives readers the same type of wondrous escape, motivation, passion, and joy that stories have always done for me.