I am a soon-to-be-published author of children’s books, primarily picture books.

I’ve been writing since I first put crayon to paper and asked, “What does it say?” to the captive audiences of my parents and brothers. All through school, I wrote stories and notes and poems and lists and filled notebooks with the imaginative worlds I lived in.

I loved stories. I loved being read to, reading on my own, and hearing family stories and the stories that teachers told that made them seem more real. (Shout out to Mrs. Mauro, my 4th-grade teacher, who had set fire to her kitchen curtains when learning to cook. That was a great story!) Best of all, I loved to tell stories.

In 5th grade, my teacher asked me to write about what my ideal school would be.  I remember telling my parents that I had special homework that no one else had, and they were afraid it was a consequence of me talking too much.  But it wasn’t.  It was a  challenge.  I suppose my teacher saw something in me.

I filled spiral notebooks.  My mom bought me a special blank book to record my poems and short stories, although I usually wrote on whatever paper was available and then stuck them between the pages.

I became an elementary school teacher and started building my library.  I made up stories for my students, using their names and personalities.  I told them that someday I would be a published author and they would go to bookstores and see books “By Ms. Scratchley.”

I dabbled in writing to be published.  I took the occasional adult education class, read books on writing, and read children’s literature, picture books through YA.  I bought and studied the annual compilation of current editors, publishers, and literary agencies.  (This was way before the internet.)

I loved teaching reading and writing to elementary students. We studied the techniques of different authors and implemented them in our own writing.

In recent years, I got serious about being published.  I started taking classes and joined organizations that supported writers, including the Society of Children’s Book Authors and Illustrators (SCBWI), Julie Hedlund’s 12×12 Writing Challenge, and Storyteller Academy.  The more I learned, the more I realized how much more I needed and wanted to know!

I kept writing and joined critique groups to give and get feedback from other writers.  I started submitting picture book manuscripts to literary agents.  I learned that the percentage of manuscripts submitted that actually make it to print is less than 1%.  I learned that Dr. Suess’s first book was rejected 27 times before someone agreed to publish it.  I got frustrated at times, but I learned not to give up.

Soooo…