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Michelle is a YA author, journalist, columnist and volunteer living in a Chicago suburb with her husband, two kids, miniature schnauzer, Ace, and two goldfish, Lovie and Bob the Builder (named by her kids). Bob the Builder also answers to the name Pizza.

Growing up on a farm south of Chicago, Michelle had the time and freedom to explore reading and writing because she had no neighbors to go outside and play with. Soybeans and corn stalks aren't interactive playmates. She read everything she could get her hands on, including peeking in the books from her mom's bookshelf when no one was looking.

At the age of 7, she wrote her first opus, a 7-page wonder titled "The Last Unicorn." It has long since disappeared but she's hoping one day it will turn up at her grandparents' house, which is the last place she remembers having it.

As a kid, Michelle wrote everything from her own silly newspapers to angst-filled song lyrics to short stories to love letters to stars like Kirk Cameron and Matthew Broderick. She retains many of these relics, which are locked away in a place no one will ever find them (hopefully).

After honing her writing skills at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Michelle graduated with a very interesting, but not useful, degree in History, concentration in medieval studies. She may have been one of the rare students who actually reveled in writing research papers, averaging hundreds of pages each semester.

Following a brief stint as a starving, but published, fiction writer, Michelle snagged a job as a manager at a used bookstore in Arlington Heights, IL. Marriage, pregnancy, a move and the birth of her daughter preoccupied Michelle for a few years, but a tentative venture into the world of journalism opened her up to a new and exciting career as a parenting writer.

Now Michelle writes YA fiction during every quiet second she can find (try that with two loud kids!). She's a member of SCBWI and loves to go conferences and meetings. In her infinite free time she serves as Co-VP of her daughter's PTA and VP of her local Friends of the Library. She does not sleep as much as she would like.

She also adores bad sci fi movies, great fantasy fiction, swing dancing and rollerblading.

Michelle is a YA author, journalist, columnist and volunteer living in a Chicago suburb with her husband, two kids, miniature schnauzer, Ace, and two goldfish, Lovie and Bob the Builder (named by her kids). Bob the Builder also answers to the name Pizza. Growing up on a farm south of Chicago, Michelle had the time and freedom to explore reading and writing because she had no neighbors to go outs... More