I started writing books in 1996 while I was actively involved in the Western Pennsylvania chapter of the Society of Childrens Book Writers and Illustrators, and my friend and mentor Dr. Fred Bortz encouraged me to shop around my nonfiction ideas to publishers. With a little help, I landed a multi-book contract with Twenty First Century Books, a school and library publisher, to write about earth science, one of my favorite topics. But the book I truly wanted to write was Sinkholes, a topic that fascinated me and, that I noted, had not a single entry in Books in Print. It took a few more years to convince a publisher to take that manuscript on, but Pineapple Press did a fine job with the results.

I thought I’d continue writing for children on a regular basis, but fate intervened in the form of Karen Berger, who was the hiking editor at Gorp.com and a fellow ALDHA member. She read one of my online posts about a particularly rough but fun hiking trip in Florida, bought it, then passed my name along to The Countryman Press. They asked for a proposal for 50 Hikes in Florida; knowing Florida, I responded with a five-part series. We settled on three. I continued to writing hiking books until I felt I’d pretty much canvassed the state.

I’m now working on a new natural history book for the Wild Florida series at University Press of Florida, and keeping the existing guidebooks updated. My dream, however, is to move on to fiction, as I have several children’s books in various stages of progress, plus a couple of novels underway.