Welcome

It’s a noisy place, my head!

Thank you for clicking your way here. Come in and explore. Although I am best known for my nonfiction books for young readers and teens, I also write poetry, short stories, beginning readers, picture books, and chapter books. I have always loved to read and secretly harbored a notion that someday I’d like to be a writer, but shyness kept me from sharing my writing attempts with anyone other than my mom and dad. Publication in those days came in the form of my stories being posted on the refrigerator door. In college, I filled my schedule with literature classes and, for some bizarre reason, geography. I graduated cum laude with a degree in British literature, with a specialization in poetry, and a minor in geography, with a specialization in meteorology. Go figure! What does one do with a degree in literature (British at that!) and geography? I got a job teaching high school in the desert of Southern California. For the next twelve years, I taught writing to high schoolers. I followed this by returning to college, but this time as a teacher of teachers, for another eight years. The whole time I was teaching, though, I stayed true to that secret longing to become a professional writer, and I wrote--in odd moments, with my students, and at night before grading compositions. Less shy now (but not my much), I began to share my scribblings with editors. Eventually, those scribblings became published poems and short stories and, in 1987, a book. That one book, BMX Freestyle, was followed by three, which in turn became eight more. Now the count stands at more than 200. I am very lucky to have had a career that I loved--teaching. I am even luckier to have an encore career that I also love--writing. Here are some of the many fictional characters I have written about: Elliot Fry, Lightning Liz, and Country Bear. It seems my head is always buzzing with characters. You might say it’s a pretty noisy place. And when made-up characters aren’t banging around in there, I fill it with real people like the Reverend Fred L. Shuttlesworth, Bayard Rustin, and so many others from history. While I am a full-time writer now and no longer teach per se, I do continue to connect with students and schools through my high-energy Author Talks, a blend of stand-up comedy, storytelling, and literacy--always with a view that every child’s life is rich material for STORY. (Pronunciation Guide: My name is easier to pronounce than many people realize. Think of BRIM, as in the BRIM of a hat. The next part is NERD--which may or may not be true--but drop the “d.” BRIM + NER = BRIMNER. Easy, yes?) TOP