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I worked on writing and volunteered in schools, but I didn't start publishing much until just before our twins were born: Nicholas Nye and Zachary Miles, in October of 1985. Nick and Zach are fantastic—and vastly different—individuals. Bruce and I got divorced in 2004, but we remain friends.

Jobs

For a couple of summers after I graduated from high school, I worked as a reservation agent for KOA campgrounds. Then I was hired as a secretary for the mining company that was dynamiting rocks down on my parents' house. They were trying to appease the natives. That is the only explanation for them hiring a girl who could type 35 words a minute, with errors. The highlight of that job was that I can now spell plagioclase cumulus with bronzite oikocrysts and I took two helicopter rides! Since then I've been a temporary employee for IBM (four months on the night shift in 1984, where I put chips on cards) and worked in a children's bookstore called Dream Maker. I've also done lots of author-in-the-schools visits and been a presenter and keynote speaker at young writers' conferences.

Awards

In 2000, my story "Sky Eyes won a World Fantasy Award for best novella and Growing Wings was one of five finalists for the Mythopoeic Award for children's fantasy and runner-up for best children's fiction from the Society of Midland Authors. I also was awarded the 2003 McKnight Artist Fellowship for Children's Fiction for 20 pages of Do Not Attempt This at School, an excerpt from chapter two, "Cowboy Josh and the Underwear of Doom."

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