About Me
Just a crazy little creative kid with a million ideas.
My crazy serendipitous story of how I became an author:
As a kid I loved to draw but I sort of forgot that until my senior year of high school. It was time for me to take my fine arts prerequisites and so I enrolled in Beginning Drawing and Painting. Our first assignment was to sketch something from a magazine and so I did. I found a profile of a young man in national geographics, he had scars on his face from battling other tribes. My Teacher saw my drawing and told me I would no longer be following the class curriculum, I would be entering contests instead. I won a few, the biggest was a scholarship to a prestigious local art college. I decided not to go to art school. I thought of my art as wildly fun, but totally impractical.
Instead I went to state university and earned a degree in both an undergrad and masters in Mathematics. Which everyone always tells me seems odd, but my brain is equally peaceful painting or figuring out a beautiful proof. I then completed my teaching credential and started teaching at the high school I graduated from.
During this time I met and fell in love with another teacher (he worked at a different school). We quickly married and were incredibly blessed to start growing our family. When I was pregnant with my second baby my best friend was pregnant with her first. She was due three months after me and I knew exactly what I wanted to get her for her baby shower: A Survival Kit. I had just had a first baby (my first two were 17 months apart) and I knew what she was about to face. I was going to write down everything when I had my second baby, all the good stuff that no one tells you, and I was going to package it with my favorite nursing bras and baby essentials.
Finally our baby arrived, and on my first day home “alone” when my third was six days old, he fell asleep. I knew I had about three hours. I quickly threw my proposal together and sent it off to Familius, a publisher whose motto is “helping families be happy.” They explain on their website that you will not hear back from them unless they are interested, and that they receive thousands of submissions so please keep your expectations low (I’m sure it didn't say that exactly, but that was the impression I got). I honestly felt pure relief. I had done what had been driving me crazy, it was off my chest. Ahhhhhhhh.
Thirty minutes later they wrote back.
They were very interested and wondered if I might want to illustrate as well. That part actually made me the most nervous, I never let my art go, I donated my paintings to charity and our home is full of large paintings, but I really never had training and didn’t consider myself an artist.
In the end, I was given the opportunity to write and illustrate my book, You Got This, Mama! From Boobs to Blowouts, a Survival Guide for New Mothers. Familius continued to put their trust in me and my second book, Raising Tiny Humans, went viral, selling out five printings in a few months. I have many more books on the way including, Trying: A Loving Guide to Navigating the Emotions of Infertility and Loss, that I wrote with one of my best friends. I will have several children’s books coming out over the next few years and I’m just so incredibly grateful, it is an absolute privilege and joy.
That would have been the end of the story except that three years later I became pregnant with my third and I had completely forgotten everything about babies. I asked my friend if she still had the scrapbook I had gifted her and she did—whew! I remembered that I put some really good stuff in there!
When I got it home I read it and I cried, I looked at my husband and said, “Everyone needs to have this.” What I hadn’t remembered was that along with all the practical information, was a mountain of love, encouragement, and empathy. Exactly what you would give your best friend to prepare her for the grand adventure she was about to embark on.
The idea bugged the crap out of me. I could not stop thinking about it. During my sleepless pregnant nights I researched publishers that accepted submissions and aligned with my goals. I thought maybe when I started my leave before my baby was born I would have time to finally send in a submission, but I was wrong, I was much more focused on getting Christmas ready for my other two and taking a toothbrush to our fridge.
