Author Updates

December 2, 2025

Adventure Awaits Young Readers

The Bird Club, an ongoing illustrated series of seven books, is now available as eBook or paperback on Amazon. (Wider distribution is underway and should be available in a few weeks).

If you've been following these updates, you might have noticed a color background change for the cover. (A last minute decision, for sure.) Here's hoping you like the change.

In my post below, I wrote about the emotional significance of these years while writing and producing this serial series, so I won't do so here. Instead, I want to comment on the overall nature of the content.

At least one reviewer has called this content "breezy" and another "winsome," descriptors that I much appreciate. I would add that these stories are more mature in subject matter than typical for primary school readers. Or . . . so I think. The characters are driven not so much by childish antics as by a desire to experience the natural world and to discover and understand its wonders and themselves. As a mature women, I've taken my inspiration from such classics as Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan, and many others. Thus, I hope that even parents will enjoy these stories—all seven of them. Ha!

October 30, 2025

Could some one please tell me the day, month, and year?

I ask because I've been on a grand adventure with members of The Bird Club for nearly four years now. And one can easily lose track of time, especially while exploring a world in another dimension. But we're back to Earth and saying our goodbyes. I will dearly miss Benita the Bird Girl and Owen the Owl Boy and the club members Ben, Olivia, Jorge, Tomas (Jorge's little brother), and Ursula. Still, I needn't miss them too much since I can drop in for visits during their bird club meetings.

As you might know, I've been dispatching a record of our adventures (six books to date), with the final book, Sunrise #7, now on the horizon. Look for it to "rise" on November 28, 2025. Till then, you can trace our adventures through books #1 to #6 because these will lead you to our final adventure. I hope you enjoy the trip!

August 8, 2025

Why I Hold the Magic Beans

My intention to write an ongoing chapter book series was not long in the making. I say this because typically I incubate a story for years before beginning to write it. In fact, for two years, I had been imagining a Young Adult story when new inspiration seared my soul—to write and illustrate a contemporary fairy tale for young readers. I instantly shelved my YA imaginings to pursue this new goal and quickly put words to “paper.” Since then, in January 2022, I’ve written and published six books in the seven-book series The Bird Club (the final book to be released in November 2025).

From where did such inspiration spring? From the words of Elia Wise in her book Letter to Earth. On writers of magical stories for children, she says,

“… the children, and a scattered population of inspired people who hold the magic beans, are preserving the wonders and possibilities of the magical world.”

For context, Wise says that while adults “have closed the door to magic in their own lives,” they yet “continue to read and tell magical stories to their children” (157-158). In this Wise finds cause for optimism to one day bring into our “mundane” and “practical” culture the magic, myth, and imagination that feeds the heart and soul.

After reading this message, I felt compelled to answer the call! I wanted to become one of the scattered population “who hold the magic beans.” Nor was I mistaken in this pursuit, for the characters in The Bird Club came eagerly to me, each sharing his or her part of the larger magical story.

My writing of The Bird Club is nearly done and soon I will return to my YA story. I hope the characters of this novel are not too annoyed with the long wait. I’ve been visiting when possible, offering various paths they might follow. But we’ll decide together when I return for good.