I was a shy kid, and spent much of my time studying nature and reading. I loved school and used to win all the spelling bees.

My favorite teacher was Mr. Ben Hancock. He taught me to love books and showed me how to hit a baseball and catch a fish. Because of Mr. Hancock’s influence, I decided to become a teacher myself some day.

After college and graduate school, I became a fourth grade teacher. But somewhere along the way I started writing children’s stories and sending them to publishing companies. No one wanted to buy my stories, but I didn't give up. Each week I would write a story and send it out. Each week the story came back with “No, thank you.” written on the manuscript.