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Where I live: Oxnard, California, in a condo a block from the beach. Paradise!

Where I lived until recently: Seattle, Washington. A gorgeous city and home to many friends and family members, which makes it especially sweet.

What I’ve written:
The Secret Life of Walter Kitty, Knopf, 2007.
I Like Colors, tiger tales, 2006.
I Like Black and White, tiger tales, 2006.
Jitterbug Jam, Farrar Straus & Giroux, 2005.
13 romance novels and novellas!

Where you can visit me: BJ's Homepage at www.barbarajeanhicks.com

What I most liked to do as a child: Read! I read in as many places as poet Eleanor Farjeon claimed a cat slept: “Anywhere! Any table, Any chair. Top of piano, Window-ledge, In the middle, On the edge..." Well, maybe not on top of piano, since we didn’t have one, but under the covers at night with a flashlight...you betcha! I also was the designated reader and storyteller for the younger three of my six siblings.
I gained my love of reading from my parents, who read to us from the time we were tiny babies. We grew up without a television in our home, so listening to Mama and Daddy read aloud was our family entertainment. Mama took us through the picture books we picked out on our weekly trips to the library in our early years. Later, Daddy took us through all the children’s classics, one chapter a night before bedtime. He also read aloud at the dinner table, opening the dictionary to a word at random and reading the derivation and definition, and then pulling out a volume of a grocery-store edition of Funk & Wagnall’s Encyclopedia—again opening at random and reading an entry from beginning to end. I owe a huge debt to my parents for instilling in me a great love for the kind of knowledge one gains from reading books.

What triggers my imagination: Appropriately for a picture book author, visual images inspire me: scenes from real life, photographs, performance and visual art. I also get story ideas by playing with perspective. I try to put myself inside the mind and experience of another person or creature, to see and explain the world from a unique point of view. Jitterbug Jam and Walter Kitty both follow this pattern. I think part of a writer’s (and an artist’s) job is to provoke people to think about the world and their place in it in new ways. A unique perspective provides the “So what?” factor in any creative work. It gives a story or painting or performance meaning beyond pure entertainment.

Where I live: Oxnard, California, in a condo a block from the beach. Paradise!Where I lived until recently: Seattle, Washington. A gorgeous city and home to many friends and family members, which makes it especially sweet.What I’ve written:The Secret Life of Walter Kitty, Knopf, 2007. I Like Colors, tiger tales, 2006. I Like Black and White, tiger tales, 2006. Jitterbug Jam, Farrar Straus & Gir... More