About Me

Baker, Traveller, Writer

Reading a book in Shakespeare and Company
bookstore in Paris, France.

I grew up on a farm near Rodney, Ontario, Canada.  I came by my love of baking honestly, with a mother and two grandmothers who loved to bake.  We lived on the same farm as my paternal grandparents, and my sister Gwen and I went to Grandma's house every Saturday morning for homemade cookies and milk.  My mother had an enormous garden behind our house, and the strawberries, raspberries and rhubarb she cultivated often found their way into pies, cobblers and crisps.

In the same way that I inherited my love of baking from my mother, my love of travel came from my father.  We took a family trip every summer in our tent trailer, and he started planning months in advance.  Although it was before the days of tripadvisor.com (my go-to resource) he amassed maps and guidebooks from CAA - the Canadian equivalent of AAA - to organize our trips.  And he was the first member of our family to have a subscription to Travel and Leisure magazine.

Anyone who knew me in university is probably wondering how I ended up writing children's books.  After all, my undergraduate was in economics and I have a master's degree in business.  I worked in banking for ten years but left when my youngest daughter was two. With my husband's job demanding more of his time, we decided it would make the most sense for me to stay at home with the girls.  And I decided that I'd devote what little free time I had to writing.  I took classes with two of the best instructors I could ask for, Peter Carver and Paula Wing, and improved my writing with the assistance of my fellow writers. I've since had three books for children published: Harley's Gift, The Next Step, and The Witch of Bloor Street.  I hope I get to keep writing forever!

At a signing for my second book, The Next Step.