About me

My first book

I always wanted to be a writer.

My first book was called “Let Us Play Tag” and because those were the only words I could spell. Everyone’s noses were triangles and the arms were straight out in front like zombies.

My writing has gotten better. My drawing hasn’t.

Then I wrote a real book

I LOVE DOGS. And reading. And writing. In that order. I used to teach 6th-grade English in Houston, but when I moved to Arkansas I decided two things. I was going to get a dog. Definitely, for sure. And I was going to write a book.

I got the idea for PIGHEARTED from the radio. NPR did a story on a scientist that wanted to use CRISPR to grow cloned human organs in pigs. I got to wondering what would happen if the pig ended up a bit too human.

Writing it was the easy part

I wrote the first draft over the next few weeks. That was the easy part. I revised it more times than I know. At one point it was set in the future and there was a chihuahua frog hybrid named Lobo. It got weird. But the key to writing is to be open to criticism. And I was. I was starved for it, and I kept improving until I was ready to query.

It took over a year of writing, revising, and querying until I found my fantastic agent Melissa Nasson of Rubin Pfeffer. Then, a few months later, Sam Gentry at Little Brown for Young Readers found us, and PIGHEARTED found a home! Now it’s coming out in fall of 2021! I can’t wait.