Eight Fits
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About

Most of this is surprisingly true.

As a toddler I was prone to bouts of geophagy, but I was able to correct this with a love of chocolate.  I grew up in The Heart of the Screenland, California, and was known at an early age for my skills as a puppeteer.  In kindergarten I kissed a girl and made her cry.  I told people that when I grew up I wanted to be a swimming pool builder.

I took third place in my division of the National Dental Association’s Dental Health Poster Contest when I was 11 years old.  I drew a picture of a monster inspired by Sesame Street and Mad Magazine with the caption “Don’t Let Me Get Into Your Mouth!”  I was awarded a Saulsbury Steak luncheon for winners at a fancy hall at UCLA and a bumper sticker for “Operation Applebrush.”  I was robbed.

In fifth and sixth grade my friend Marc and I published a book of illustrated puns.  “This Book Is Not Very Punny” was it’s title.  I was also fond of making impossibly difficult word search puzzles, acquired a taste for Cat Stevens and Dr. Demento simultaneously, and declared I would grow up to be an animator for Disney.  My favorite smell was the bracing alcohol fumes of damp and freshly printed ditto sheets.

In junior high I was suspended for calling my teacher an illegitimate child, though that wasn’t how I said it.  I had been singled out for talking and made to stand outside the classroom door for most of the period.  I had assumed it would only be for a few minutes and didn’t bring a jacket with me.  It was raining.  And other kids were talking so much that the teacher had to yell for them to be quiet.  I could hear all this outside.  I thought it was cruel and unusual punishment to be forced to stand outside under a small awning on a rainy day for behavior other kids were not punished for.  And so I said something that the Vice Principal felt I should be suspended for.

A few years later I was learning photography, writing parodies of famous poems, and drawing comics with flying, flaming eyeballs terrorizing cities of chocolate chips.  I also fell in with an older crowd of high school kids who were into making silent movies.  I was featured in an adaptation of Macbeth as one of the witches and Lady Macbeth. I declared I would grow up and make real movies, since I didn’t have the patience for animation.

In high school I joined the newspaper staff and helped edit the literary journal. I also worked on the yearbook as a photographer for three years.  I was part of the cross country team for a while. I was also one of the original members of the Filmmaker’s Club. I also got a part-time job working in a movie theater.  I was very busy in high school, mostly because things weren’t going so well at home.  Sometimes I wonder how I managed to graduate high school.  Sometimes I still dream that I’m back in high school and things are going all wrong.  I am told this is common.

I made it to college where I studied film but realized I loved books and printmaking more.  I went back to school and became a teacher.  I taught mostly in public middle schools, Art and English.  I stopped being creative, even when I was teaching Art, so I stopped teaching and started writing instead.

​I wrote screenplays mostly.  While I was learning how, I worked at a local community radio station and became a music DJ.  I also reviewed movies.  I also wrote Public Service Announcements, hundreds of them.  I kept coming up with stories about kids that just didn’t work as movies for some reason.  After ten years of writing, and trying to write, I felt like I needed a change.  I quit my job and traveled in Europe.
I came back to the United States when I realized that what I wanted to do – really wanted more than anything I’d ever wanted to do before – was write for children and young adults.  I worked in bookstores and studied books carefully.  Then I discovered there was actually a school specifically for writing for children and young adults!  It didn’t seem possible that I would get there, but eventually I did.  And I graduated.  And now…
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