As a child, I always created worlds and stories in my head. I was always a dreamer. I wrote my first book, The Fall of Shaharazad, in 9th grade English class. I didn’t even know how to type so my Papa typed it for me. My second ‘writerly’ moment happened in my senior year of high school when I wrote a sci-fi short story titled Trek Wars. My English teacher asked if she could submit it to a magazine. In college, my Creative Writing professor asked me to see him in his office. I thought my paper must have been so bad that I was in trouble. Instead, he told me that I should not go into teaching children. “This is what you need to do,” he said as he pointed to my paper about salsa dancing. “Teach salsa dancing?” I asked. "But I'm really not that good and I get dizzy when I spin too fast," I thought. I really did think that. But he wanted me to teach English, 

specifically creative writing. After receiving my degree in Elementary and Early Childhood Education, I followed my professor's advice and signed up to earn another degree to teach English that following Fall semester. But I never showed because I fell in love. So that was the end of English teacher Heidi.

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Despite my mother's prodding to write a book, I didn't write a story for many, many years. Being a preschool teacher ingrained my love for picture books. It's an obsession really. Still it took 15 years to put words on to paper and write a picture book. I thought it would be easy. Boy! Was I ever wrong! That first picture book manuscript probably won't ever get published. It's so hard! But I fell in love again, and this time, with writing picture books. I've been writing picture books ever since. It's definitely a labor of love.

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