I was born into a hardworking middle class family in Northern Kentucky. At about the age of 7, we moved to a farm house. I had never had so much freedom to roam and explore and there began my wonderland! Our neighbors had  goats, chickens, horses and Angus cows. We had a very large garden and numerous fruit trees with snacks for the picking. I spent as much time at my neighbors with her four legged friends as I did helping my uncle and family tend the garden. The animals fascinated me. One spring day my dad, added a very large dog to our family. And that is where the Samson stories begin........ Samson and I  spent an inordinate amount of my youth nosing through sheds, barns, woods, and up a tree when a certain bull decided I was in his paddock. Samson saved my butt by alerting my dad. It was a great childhood!

Never in a million years, though, would I have thought about becoming a children’s book author. This seed wasn’t planted until many years later when I began to journal some of the fun escapades of my childhood. The interest to publish began to grow as I looked around at many other children's books and saw very few that were vibrant, magically written and demonstrated the love of a young girl and her dog.  Samson and I were a team having fun, taking on  responsibility and wrapping our hearts around our new found friends.  

One angel who influenced this love of story telling and reading was my older sister who always brought me a new book when she collected her weekly salary.  

Beverly Clearly once said and has since then become one of my favorite sayings, “If you don’t see the book you want on the shelf, write it.”

So that’s exactly what I did.