About

For over thirty years I’ve been writing children’s books, including Maddie’s Ghost, Eddie’s War, and The Bridge Dancers. The Time-Jinx Twins trilogy is next on my list, starting in April.

Honors for my books (traditional and indie) include Kirkus Best, Bank Street Best, Horn Book Recommended Verse, NCSS/CBC Notables, the Carl Sandburg Award for Children’s Literature, the Midland Authors Award for Children’s Fiction, and Chicago Public Library’s Best Teen Fiction.

For many years, I worked as a manuscript editor at the University of Chicago Press. For adults, I wrote the book and blog The Subversive Copy Editor (aka Writer, Editor, Helper), and I’m still a contributing editor to The Chicago Manual of Style. Duckweed Books is my indie children’s book imprint.

I live - can you guess? - in Chicago!

 

Nine More Things about Me

1. When I was little, I was afraid of the fish on the shower curtain in the bathroom.

2. I like to rollerskate. I live near Lake Michigan, where there’s a beautiful path.  Once I rollerbladed into the skateboard park—but that was terrifying, and I don’t plan to do it again. Here’s a picture of me wearing my first roller skates:

3. My brother and sister and I all have brown eyes, and we each have two children, one with brown eyes and one with blue eyes. (Quiz: What can you deduce from that?)

4. When I was twelve, my parents got divorced. Later, they both got married to other people who had children. That meant that in addition to my brother and sister, I suddenly had some step-siblings. To be exact, I had seven new step-brothers and three new step-sisters. It was kind of wild.

5. One summer when I was in college, I had a job as a letter carrier. The rolling cart hadn’t been invented yet, so I had to carry a heavy leather bag filled with mail from door to door. The first day was really hot, and they also hadn’t invented hydration yet, and I fainted on someone’s front porch.

6. I was in San Francisco during a major earthquake, in 1989. (Technically I was in Berkeley, which is across the bay.) I could see the damaged Bay Bridge from the house where I was living.

7. Once I went to China and ate a scorpion. (That’s not why I went, though.)

8. My brother Tom races motorcycles. Here’s a picture of him in a race (he came in second). After that is a photo I took while I was riding on the back of his bike. (It was not during a race! We were just going to the grocery store. You can see me in the mirror.)

9. I have been saved from drowning. Twice. I’m still a little skittish around water, and two of my books have scary bridges in them. (One of them isn’t published yet.)