About Me
First off, I have a confession to make. It was only a few years ago when I finally decided what I wanted to be when I grow up.
I had read Kenneth Grahame's Wind in the Willows when I was 18, and had fallen in love with his animal characters. But I was off to UC Berkeley and didn't give writing another thought for 50 years. After graduating from Cal I began a career in Personnel Management, where I worked in both the public and private sectors - Academic Personnel first in the UCB Chancellor's Office, and then at the Lawrence Hall of Science on the Berkeley campus. Next came Personnel Manager and Office Manager for a large Seattle law firm.
When I retired in 2002, I wanted to give back to my community and my country. I joined the Board of Directors for the Pacific Northwest USO, where I served on the executive committee for 8 years. I had some health issues around 2014 and resigned from the USO Board. So I soon found myself thinking back to the Wind in the Willows and decided it was time to get crakin’ on a childrens book. I knew I wanted my story to be about lovable animals and I decided I would also write it in rhyme. So now following the path of both Kenneth Grahame and Dr Seuss I started to write.
When I had finished my draft it was time to learn about the publishing process. I turned to the internet and found a group (ALLi – the Alliance of Independent Authors) that could help me in the process of publication. There turned out to be a lot more to this than I had imagined. Through ALLi I found my publisher. He was a wonderful find, and he and his team taught me so very much about my genre, about appraisals, and editing, and more. Once I found the illustrator I wanted to work with I learned about formatting. I took a crash course in marketing, and because of this class I presold 125 books before I even had my finished books in my hands. This journey to publication was a fascinating and thrilling adventure and I loved every minute of it. Scooter and Friends Take a Vacation had been born.
Nancy is now working on a sequel.
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Nancy is available for speaking events, conferences and author encounters. Her specialist keynote addresses the publishing process for an independent author, working with an illustrator and the importance of marketing. If you would like Nancy to speak to your organization, business, group or school click here to enquire. ​​