Author

I am a published author.

I have loved books and writing since before I could read.

Storytelling seemed the ultimate career.

Books created new worlds I could explore, led me on adventures, and inspired me.

Children’s Books

My children’s book author career is new. It includes completed picture book manuscripts. I also have one chapter book for 7-8 year olds. Finally I have written and revised and edited 140,000 words. These are for a fantasy trilogy aimed at middle grades. This one still needs significant revision.

Characters and Synopses:
Denver the Dapper Dog has his own perspective on life, which doesn’t always match his family’s.

Persephone is a caterpillar who knows she is a butterfly. Her classmates disagree, which makes fitting in a challenge.

The hero of When Grama Bunny Forgot is Billy, who rides an emotional rollercoaster due to his grandmother’s illness.

Poetry

I have published dozens of poems. These have appeared in various venues. Some are in journals. Others are in collections. One has been published as part of an inspirational book.

Two video poems appear on NCTE’s website:

Taj Mahal Review published “Memory’s Child.”

“Sweeter than KitKats” was published in Literature Today.

The haiku “Briskly Moving Now” appears in Haiku Journal.

Nonfiction

I have a textbook published: How to Write About Shakespeare’s Romances.

In addition, I have published twenty articles.

My article in FemSpec (a feminist journal on science fiction and fantasy and other speculative fiction) was quoted in a New York Times Book Review.

One of my articles compared modern versions of vampires. That article was translated into Italian for publication.

Another, in the international journal Changing English, discusses introducing literature using fairy tales.

 

Nicole Honeywill from Unsplash

Educator

I began my formal career as an educator in a one-room schoolhouse. I taught physical education, history, and writing. Since then, I have taught every level of education from pre-K through graduate school.

I am available to Skype into classes to talk about writing.
I could talk about a variety of topics including the creative process,
the importance of revising, where to get ideas,
and the benefits of journaling.

I am also available to come to classes with activities to facilitate poetry writing.
Examples of classroom activities

Some of my favorite classes were for elementary students. These included

  • Games and Races, a world history class based on the games the people played.
  • Dinosaurs and Dragons, the true-life and mythical stories of giant (and tiny) land and sea creatures around the world.
  • Poetry, using students’ creativity combined with classroom brainstorming so they could write amazing poems.

I taught history and biology at Northland Christian School, history, writing, and English at Home Run Academy, and all elementary subjects at Lord and Davis Academy (Houston). I also taught writing and literature at Lone Star College, Houston Community College, Houston Baptist University, and Abilene Christian University.

In 2000 I received my PhD in English from Purdue University. My fields were rhetoric and composition and Old English literature. That means I focused on writing and stories.