I was a shy kid, and spent much of my time studying nature and reading. I loved school and used to win all the spelling bees.

My favorite teacher was Mr. Ben Hancock. He taught me to love books and showed me how to hit a baseball and catch a fish. Because of Mr. Hancock’s influence, I decided to become a teacher myself some day.

After college and graduate school, I became a fourth grade teacher. But somewhere along the way I started writing children’s stories and sending them to publishing companies. No one wanted to buy my stories, but I didn't give up. Each week I would write a story and send it out. Each week the story came back with “No, thank you.” written on the manuscript.

Then in 1978, I sold my first children’s book. That was one of the most exciting days of my life. Soon I left teaching and became a full time writer.

In 1997 I started writing the A to Z Mysteries series. Now I am working on Capital Mysteries. Millions of children are reading these books, which makes me very happy. But I still remember the day I sold my first book.