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My children's book, Best Friend on Wheels, was published by Albert Whitman & Company, March 2008. The idea for Best Friend on Wheels came out of my work with Physically Handicapped Actors and Musical Artists League (PHAMALy), a non-profit theater company for performers with disabilities. As Administrative Director for PHAMALy, I learned a great deal from “differently-abled” actors about living – and dancing and creating – with disabilities. Perhaps even more importantly, I learned that my own misperceptions about disabilities were often greater stumbling blocks than the disabilities endured by the performers I came to know. Like so many others, I once felt very awkward in the presence of those with visible disabilities – terrified I might say or do something to offend. During my first experience watching PHAMALy’s talented performers on stage, my awareness of disabilities quickly receded as the performers’ talents and abilities leapt to the forefront. Working with PHAMALy, I soon learned that people with disabilities are as uniquely complicated as everyone else, and share all the same interests, abilities, hopes and dreams. It is a lesson I wish I had learned early in life. In my book, Best Friend on Wheels, I hope to help children everywhere see that, beyond every disability, is a person just like them – a person who might just be their new best friend.


I am currently the Director of after school and summer arts programming at two elementary schools in Arvada, Colorado. I write poetry, fiction, children's books and plays and have poetry in The Cortland Review, Margie Review: The American Journal of Poetry and elsewhere. My short play, A Case of Good Scents was included in the Playwright's Festival of the Western Region. I hold a BFA in professional acting from East Carolina University.

I am a member of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators

My children's book, Best Friend on Wheels, was published by Albert Whitman & Company, March 2008. The idea for Best Friend on Wheels came out of my work with Physically Handicapped Actors and Musical Artists League (PHAMALy), a non-profit theater company for performers with disabilities. As Administrative Director for PHAMALy, I learned a great deal from “differently-abled” actors about livin... More