Hands down, the biggest thrill is to get a letter from a kid saying, I loved your book. Will you write me another one?

Every well-written book is a light for me. When you write, you use other writers and their books as guides in the wilderness.

Writing my own stories had always been one of my dreams, but I didn't start until I was 29. I was working in a book warehouse and was assigned to the third floor where all the children's books were. For four and a half years, I spent all day, every day around children's books, and it wasn't long before I fell in love with them.

When I was starting to write, I was fascinated with 'Knuffle Bunny' by Mo Willems. I remember taking it home and typing it out, trying to figure out how it worked. It's just a classic, with dauntingly few words.

My father leaving the family shaped who I was and how I looked at the world. By the same token, my father telling me fairy tales that he had made up shaped me profoundly, too.