Hello! I just got back from my first SCBWI conference and it was awesome… perhaps more on that later. For now, some thoughts on the process for one of my favorite recent pieces, “Grandma’s Kitchen/Two Sugars“.

I often think about my Grandma Ruth, who passed away when I was about 11 years old. I loved visiting her & my grandpa – they lived about 4 hours away, so we didn’t get to see them all the time. My own girls are so incredibly lucky to have access to their grandparents – all four within a twenty-minute drive!  In any case, my grandma’s home was full of neat patterns and spaces that I loved to explore. We took pictures of the house before it sold, just after she passed away, so I went searching for them to use as reference for this little story. It’s strange to think that the house we live in now is just a half hour’s drive from that kitchen!   Often when I visited, I’d try to convince her that my own mother let me have two sugars in my cereal instead of just one tiny sprinkle. I’m sure she suspected the con, but she nearly always let me get away with it.

Thanks, Grandma ;).