

Sometime around second grade
I have twenty books to my credit including being the illustrator of the hugely successful PUNCTUATION TAKES A VACATION. Some of my other titles include BASIL’S BIRDS, THELONIUS TURKEY LIVES!, BEAR’S BIG BREAKFAST, and BENNY SHARK GOES TO FRIEND SCHOOL.
My books have been published by New York’s finest: HarperCollins, Farrar Straus Giroux, Random House, Holiday House, Disney and Amazon/Two Lions.
I live outside Austin, Texas, where I work in a studio in my backyard.


I’m originally from Indiana. A small Midwestern state full of corn and basketball hoops. When I was a kid, I was a really good basketball player with a nice jump shot. I wanted to be a professional basketball player. But I guess being an author is pretty good, too.
I was in the U.S. Army for two years. I wrote a column and drew cartoons for the newspaper at Fort Polk, Louisiana.
I met my future husband on an armored personnel carrier.

I'm an inept golfer, determined to become an average golfer someday...if I'm lucky.

I love making all kinds of art. These are welded steel sculptures,
painted and placed in my back yard.
My garden is another work of art, as well as a labor of love.