Worms

My mother used to call me "little mother of all the world" because I was always kind to every kind of creature, including worms. I guess I still am.

If I see poor little earthworms stranded on a sidewalk or street after a rainstorm I usually stop and put them back in the nearest yard or flower bed. After all, they help enrich the soil and it isn't their fault they're slimy.

When a retired pastor I know found out I rescue worms he told me, "On the day of judgement all the worms will rise up and praise your name." (Thanks Rev. Earl.) Now that's an interesting image!

My newest book, Slime & All, even has a giant, talking worm as the main character.

Maybe I should become known as Worm Woman.

But am I really unusual to like earthworms? What about you? Do you like worms, hate them, or ignore them?

Slime and All

My newest book is being published right now. It should be up on Amazon and other online sites soon and bookstores can order it.

Slime and All is an early chapter book about a giant worm who wants a friend. I hope it will encourage kids to accept others who are different from themselves.

Becoming a Writer

Recently someone asked me to explain how I became a writer, so here’s the story.

From early childhood I wanted to be an author and majored in English in college. I carefully wrote every assignment in my first English class according to the Thesis Sentence Outline that had been drilled into us in high school.

One day the professor asked what I wanted to do after graduation. When I told him my goal to be a writer he replied, “You’ll never make it. You have no creativity.”

Foolishly I believed him and gave up the dream of getting published, although I never stopped writing. But no other career seemed right so I still told people I wanted to be a writer.

My roommate said, “Show me your rejection slips. You’re not a writer unless you have rejection slips.” To stop her nagging, I sent something to a publication where I knew it couldn’t possibly be accepted, showed her the rejection slip, and she left me alone.

One day about 25 years later I remembered the professor’s words and realized following that outline had made my writing uncreative. I wrote a children’s story I had often told my kids, submitted it to two possible publishers, and it was accepted by one of them.

“That was easy,” I thought.

I typed out something else, sent it off, and got the first of many rejections. That showed I was really a writer!

Realizing I needed to learn the craft, I read books, subscribed to magazines, attended conferences and joined a critique group. As with any other profession, there was a lot to learn.

Since then I’ve lost count of how many things I’ve had published in periodicals, and I’m now the author of three books for kids. A fourth one, Slime and All, will be published this month.