I was a child once. It's true. With...reoccurring nightmares of dinosaurs, volcanoes and werewolves. Embarrassing Eighties haircuts and chocolate hair gel. A videogame controller with only one button, and cassette tape computer games, screeching like banshees as they loaded. Endless doodling, marble rolling, soccer playing and biking, racing home as the streetlights blinked on. Cheesy horror flicks galore: zombies and werewolves and mutants. Choose Your Own Adventure books and Nancy Drew mysteries. And, inspired by a typewriter, a dream to be a story writer when I grew up (when I wasn't picturing myself as Dr. Dolittle).

But first I had to fly across the ocean a couple times—and do some growing up.

Horror books sucked me in over the years (King, Rice and Koontz). But for a while I traded reading for drawing, wore stripy tights, Doc Martens and a nose ring, and left school for Bradford College. There I studied Art and Design then Graphic Design. This was a time before computers. A time when layouts and letters were all hand-drawn and giant turkeys ruled the earth. Then I started work and had to use a computer. How I hated those cumbersome plastic beasts. But I loved my first job because I got to draw cartoons and make videos for kids.

Like a numpty, I flew away...

To Toronto, where I faced a rude, corporate awakening. Scrambling by in a frenzy of tiny yellow folders, video cables and late nights. I learned a lot in the years that followed—from giant tradeshow booths to itty-bitty icons, and even how to print on metal parts—but "slick city chick" didn't stick. Skyscrapers morphed into fields of beans, with a husband and baby appearing somewhere in between. (Where'd they come from?) Turns out, babies aren't the most riveting conversationalists, and a trip to the library had me back into books. Branching out into all kinds of genres and topics, rediscovering picture books, and ultimately rekindling that story-writing dream.

I started with the course Writing for Children and Teenagers through the Institute of Children's Literature and kept reading and learning and pecking at the keys (with a whole lot of distractions in between). Experimenting and gaining experience.

Then we drove west for a week, to a little lakeside town, nestled between the misty mountains of Vancouver Island. Where everything eats your plants and poops in your yard.

Which brings me to...

My latest announcements: I passed my proofreading course with a distinction! No longer am I a confused Canadian caught between dialects. And the Time Playground educational comic series I wrote for Toy Theater is gaining momentum. Book two, The Bike Part That Flew, is out now in print. And comics three and four are coming soon!