Welcome
Hi, welcome to my web site. I am a children's author, and a music faculty member at Whatcom Community College here in Bellingham, Washington. I teach Introduction to World Music; Music Appreciation; Class Voice; Collegiate Choir; and an interdisciplinary course I developed titled Arts, Business and Community. When I'm not teaching or working on a writing project, I'm either visiting schools to do writing workshops and assemblies, or I'm hiking or playing in a marimba group with friends.
Ever since second grade, when I saw a film about the husband and wife team who wrote and illustrated the book about a hermit crab named Pagoo, I've known I wanted to be a writer.
In third grade I wrote my first story for fun, about Pumpy Pumpkin, who finds buried treasure with the help of his animal friends. I enjoyed all the creative writing assignments I had, from grade school to college--but not reports, which I tended to do at the last minute. Now I like writing nonfiction information in a creative way, like setting the salmon cycle to a poem.
Often, in classes or written articles, writers are advised to write what they know. I prefer to choose what I'd like to know more about, then write about it. It's impossible to be bored when you're learning great new stuff all the time. The thing I like best about being a writer, after the creative thrill, is digging around for new things to discover and write about.