...a college class assignment led to teaching at the American School for the Deaf in Connecticut, and my emersion in Deaf culture and proficiency in American Sign Language (ASL).

     A passion to write and illustrate books was ignited by using picture books in my classroom, so after a number of years, I left teaching at ASD to do just that.  To date, I've illustrated and/or written and illustrated more than two dozen books that have been recognized with honors from Parents’ Choice, the National Council of Teachers of English, the International Reading Association, and others. Many of my manuscripts, dummies, sketches, and correspondences are archived at the Northeast Children’s Literature Collection at the University of Connecticut.

     One of my award-winners is Beware the Brindlebeast, and in 2009, National Theatre of the Deaf (NTD), celebrated their 40th anniversary by commissioning me to adapt that picture book into a play that toured nationally.

     Those performances of BEWARE THE BRINDLEBEAST AND OTHER TALES sparked the writing of HEAR ME, a wholly original musical that blends my lived experiences as a hearing person in the Deaf community,  a children's book author/illustrator, and as a perfectly flawed human--a full circle moment if there ever was one!

     Subsequently, I founded Fat Chance Production Group, LLC, which is producing HEAR ME, in co-operation with others.

​     I've taught illustration at the Hartford Art School/University of Hartford, in Connecticut, and writing in the MFA low-residency program at Lesley University in Cambridge, MA.

     Plus, I make a mean calamari salad.

     Recently, my husband and I gave up the mothership--our  1798 Colonial home and studio overlooking the Cove in Old Wethersfield, Connecticut--and have happily launched a tiny satellite in Cambridge, Massachusetts.