I love to write and have been a writer my whole life. Sounds goofy – but as a kid, we used to have a set of those Britannica Encyclopedias and sometimes when I’d get bored, I’d pick a subject, find it in the encyclopedia, and write about it. True story.  I know – my “cool card” is officially gone!

Since I was 12 years old, I wrote poetry.  Lots and lots of poetry. I still have those poems and one day I will put out “My Collection” or whatever I decide to title it. Either it will make you laugh, or cry, or both, and I’m not sure if it will be actual “wow those were really good” laughs or cries, or just “wow…you’re kidding, right?” laughs or cries! Either way, you’ll have to let me know.

Things I love? I love to laugh. My favorite movies are always comedies and dinners at our house are always a good time! I love a good bottle of wine.  I love Almond Joys. I love music – all kinds. I love girlfriend time, weekend getaways, kind hearts, and I love, love, LOVE my family.  Here we are:

And of course our dog, Nigel.  Coolest dog ever!

I love lots of things such as music (huge U2 fan), dogs and Christmas time! But my favorite thing has always been doing anything creative. Early on, it was drawing or doing arts and crafts with my mom growing up. We would also read books each night before bedtime and my parents had gotten me a collection of Disney story books. The art in those books has lasted in my mind to this day and often times I recall the films based on my memories of those books. This is also where my fascination with all things Disney began.

I was always drawing something as a kid but then the age of the home computer started to come about.  I quickly became all about making graphics on my very first computer, a Commodore 64. The real excitement came when I got my first color printer for Christmas one year. I was then able to draw on my computer and print out my creations in full color! I am pretty sure all of my free time was spent making computer graphics. I remember the printer was a ribbon cartridge and it had to do a full pass on each line of all four colors. It took forever but I loved it.

I was well into my major in animation when computer animated films such as Toy Story were first coming out and I was captivated. So it was the thrill of a lifetime when I was selected to intern at Walt Disney World in the semester before my graduation.

I did not necessary see it at the time but all of these interests and experiences were leading me towards children's illustrations. And then one, day Amy Logan called and it all became clear this is what I was destined to do!