[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default” custom_margin=”0px||||false|false” custom_padding=”0px||||false|false”][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_post_title meta=”off” _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default” title_text_color=”#24305e” title_font_size=”36px” text_orientation=”center” custom_margin=”||||false|false” custom_padding=”||||false|false” hover_enabled=”0″ sticky_enabled=”0″][\/et_pb_post_title][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]<\/p>\n
I wrote my first story in elementary school. It was about a very tiny family living inside a very large house and was quite similar to THE BORROWERS by Mary Norton. Some might call this plagiarism, but really it was more about me discovering a mentor-author for the kind of stories I loved to read and using those stories to guide my own writing. And even though I didn\u2019t know it at the time, I was learning to read as a writer and learning how to write from other writers. As an elementary teacher of language arts, I encouraged my students to discover those stories that touched them in some unique way. I encouraged them to find authors whose writing took their breath away and then ask themselves, \u201cWhat did this author do in his\/her writing that I like so much? What can I learn from this author about the craft of writing?\u201d<\/p>\n
I was born in Omaha, Nebraska, and at the age of nine moved to Port Washington, Wisconsin, a small town nestled along the shores of Lake Michigan. Moving from the Nebraska prairie to the rolling hills of Wisconsin, from a big city to a small town, from one school to another, was a difficult adjustment for me. But I grew to love the sound of the foghorn warning ships coming into the harbor. I grew to love the jetty that stretched out into the lake, frozen with icicles in winter, and I even grew to love the humid summers, swimming in the lake’s chilly water with my brother and sister. Best of all, I discovered that moving didn’t take friends away, it gave me new friends, at school and in my own neighborhood.<\/p>\n
At the age of 22, I traded hills for mountains, and moved to Utah to begin my teaching career, working with both hearing and hearing-impaired students. <\/p>\n
I have a Bachelor\u2019s Degree in Deaf Education, a Master\u2019s Degree in Education and an MFA from Vermont College. I attended four summer writing institutes at Teachers College, Columbia University, New York and several NCTE conventions. I was a recipient of the Utah English\/Language Arts Teacher of the Year Award.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I wrote my first story in elementary school. It was about a very tiny family living inside a very large house and was quite similar to THE BORROWERS by Mary Norton. Some might call this plagiarism, but really it was more about me discovering a mentor-author for the kind of stories I loved to read […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-91","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\n