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

Me in 1972

I always thought I was a visual 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, a far cry from drawing cute little animals with dots for eyes! It’s been especially enjoyable work, because as a kid, I was super-bored by the books and classes offered to us. As a nature nerd outside of class, I probably missed out on pursuing a career in science because of the lack of inspiration/connection in school. Now I have the chance to write the books I would have loved. I can hopefully help kids get 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, (Poop is Power comes to mind, one of my favorites) and I also work on a variety of projects that I hope to sell someday. I thrive on variety and love to learn about things and then turn what I learn into a book for kids. I also write Instructables and have won three 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. I also like to grow plants, scream at the TV, gawk at nature, and play guitar.

I share my life with one very patient partner of 42 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