Do you remember the first story you ever read, and the impact it had on you?
My grandmother would read the same books to me over and over. The first one I recall was "Scuffy the Tugboat," which was a Little Golden Book. We have a river island where I spent much of my childhood, so the book was interesting to me because the little tugboat went down a river to a big city. I knew that our river ended up in San Francisco. I was fond of the story because I related to it and the river was always so interesting to me. I knew at age eight that I wanted to write stories because books brought magic into my life.
How do you approach cover design?
You've got to have a vision about the book and what stands out for you in the message of the story. Because I do judge books by their covers, I typically choose covers that would be interesting enough for me to open if I were a consumer.
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