I have always loved books. To this day, I have no idea when I learned to read. All my parents know is that they gave me a book for my fourth birthday and I sat down and read it to them. They were surprised to say the least. I wrote my first story when I was five. I wrote it in crayon and gave it to my mother for Mother’s day. She was pleased, but not surprised. According to my parents, I have been telling stories since I could talk. I can still remember leafing through each National Geographic magazine and creating stories from the photographs. My Mom thought I would either be a Psychologist or a Writer. I have wound up becoming both. I received my undergraduate degree from MTSU, with a double major in Theater and Psychology, and M.Ed. from Vanderbilt in Human Developmental Counseling. But I quickly discovered that while I loved working with children, the clinical setting was not for me. I also found that a Nanny with a Masters was a rare and desirable thing and worked with many wonderful families. I enjoyed watching the children grow and develop. I appreciated the freedom from bureaucracy. And I loved telling them stories. In 2003, the family I worked for moved to Atlanta, GA, and I went with them. I had more time on my hands, and found myself writing down many of the stories I told the children. I started playing around with the idea of seeking a publisher. But I was unsure of exactly how to proceed. I started reading books about children’s publishing and editing my work. After moving back to Nashville, my mother suggested a writer’s conference she had seen in the paper. So in 2005, I went to my very first writer’s workshop. It was a mentoring workshop, where attendees had the opportunity to have their work critiques by professional editors. I had the honor of working with Holly Miller, an editor for the Saturday Evening Post, and published author with many books to her credit. She gave me wonderful support for my writing and suggested that I enter writing contests to help me “break in” to the profession. In the summer of 2007, a friend sent me information about the Cheerios Spoonful of Stories Contest. It seemed a little too good to be true. The Grand prize winner would have their story distributed by Cheerios, and the opportunity to be published by Simon and Schuster. I worked on several different pieces that I had already written, and even worked on a few new pieces. But nothing seemed right. On the very last day of the contest I had almost given up hope of entering when inspiration hit. I was washing the family dog with the youngest child, who was three at the time. She started singing “Dog Wash, Dog Wash,” as we scrubbed away. It struck me that if she was having that much fun with the words, maybe other children would too. I started writing the first rough draft of The Great Dog Wash in a purple marker while the child ate her Mac and Cheese. I edited the piece over and over while she slept. But I finally got the story entered on their website just hours before the contest closed. And I still made it to the school on time to pick up the three older children. In December, 2007, I received a call that changed everything. I was informed that I had won the first Spoonfuls of Stories Contest, and that Simon and Schuster wanted to publish my story.