“Why fit in when you were born to stand out?” — Dr. Seuss

Me in 1972

I always thought I was an artist, beginning at a very early age. I was born of creative parents: one artist and one musician who was an engineer in real life. I began my freelance career as a hopeful illustrator and production artist after quitting college in 1974. In 1987 I published my first picture book, Pussycat Ate the Dumplings. Since then I have published projects as illustrator and/or author of novelty, activity and picture books, early readers, middle grade fiction and nonfiction, magazine articles, blogs, and a variety of educational materials. I design book covers and interiors, and have created book trailers for a few projects just for fun. You can visit one of those here and also see what else is on my channel.

In recent years, I’ve been hired to write a variety of nonfiction books for kids, which was a far cry from drawing little animals with dots for eyes. It’s been especially enjoyable work, because as a kid, I was bored by the books we had and probably missed out on pursuing a career in science because of that. Now I get the chance to write the books I would have loved. I can help get kids excited about things they’ve never considered before, maybe even help set them on a career path that they’ve never heard of or thought about.

So far, I haven’t turned down a job that sounded interesting no matter what the challenge, and I also work on a variety of spec projects that I hope to sell someday. I thrive on variety and I love to learn about things I know nothing about and then turn it into a book for kids. I also write Instructables and have won two contests so far. My partner and I self-published one book which you can find here, and are working on another one which you can read about here. Recently I’ve been creating needlepoint designs. I also like to garden, gawk at nature, and play guitar.

I share my life with one very patient partner of 41 years, Jeep the dog, Bonita and Shinny the cats, and a variety of wild critters that inhabit our Funny Farm in western Oregon.

The photos in the blog header are all public domain, with the exception of the cover of My Friend Rabbit, written and illustrated by one of my heroes, Eric Rohmann.

Me in 2017