I was raised by a pair of New Yorkers in Fresno, California, a combination which gave me an overactive imagination and an intense yearning for bagels. I decided to become a writer was when I was 10, after reading the amazingly fantastical Wizard of Oz books by L. Frank Baum. My first choice was to become Ozma, Princess of Oz, but since that job was already taken and also fictional, writing seemed like the next best thing!

Unfortunately, my first novel was tragically lost in a sea of library books on the floor of my room before I could finish the third chapter. Around the same time, I fell in love with acting and theater, which was very distracting, so I didn’t write for a while. Eventually I started writing plays, and wrote a bunch in high school.

As I grew up, I balanced writing with my love for theater, TV and movies. I got degrees in English and Theater and a Master’s in Screenwriting, and I kept writing. Then I left school and it got tougher. There were more things to get distracted by, like having money to pay rent and buy food.

I worked in a bookstore, as a congressional staffer and a television producer (which is actually mostly writing). The whole time, I kept writing my own stories when I could, and telling everyone I could that I wanted to write. I started getting writing jobs. Finally, I got a big break.

American Girl read one of my screenplays and asked me to write a novel for them. So I did. And I loved what I wrote. And they loved what I wrote, which was pretty thrilling!

So now I write books for American Girl, and I’m also working (slowly) on my first full-length, non-American Girl middle grade novel. I also write movie and television scripts, too.

I love making up stories. I also love vintage maps, strange names, strong coffee, forgotten treasures and words and all the flavors they come in. Most of all, I love my family. I live in the city of dreams, (aka Los Angeles), with my husband and son.

 

Headshot by Sonja Sones