Ellen was born in the far north of Duluth, Minnesota but grew up in pre-freeway So-Cal during the fifties and sixties, when the towns were sweetly small and funky and orange groves still ruled the landscape. If she wasn’t racing around on her bike, she was reading Nancy Drew, The Boxcar Children, The Bobbsey Twins, Mrs. PiggleWiggle, Mary Poppins, comic books, and the backs of cereal boxes (just like The Lucky Lizard does).

Her first published story, “My Cat Felix”, appeared in her hometown newspaper when she was seven. Later, in eighth grade English class she wrote her first Y.A. story, “The Execution”, a grim Thanksgiving tale.

Ellen’s story ideas come from all sorts of places, real and imagined. The Lucky Lizard began when her son captured a bluebelly lizard in the chaparral-covered hills near the family home. Tarantulas used to migrate across their yard; that’s where the story “The Tarantula” got its start. When Ellen’s kids caught chicken pox she stuck them in a bathtub of oatmeal and wrote “Itching to Play”.

Her new picture books are connected with early memories: at five she wanted to be the Lone Rangerette . That inspired Buckamoo Girls. My Life As A Chicken probably began with visiting her great-grandparents’ Encino ranch. How their chickens transformed into the adventure of Pauline Poulet is part of the mystery of being a writer. Ellen doesn’t exactly think of stories, so much as hear the characters’ voices and see pictures in what she calls her “movie mind”--more about that in a later installment on her Kids' Clicks page.

When she’s not writing or teaching, Ellen likes to sing, beach comb, bake molasses cookies, grow sweet peas, eat popcorn, visit her grown-up kids, and go camping in northern New Mexico. She lives in Santa Barbara with her husband John, an architect specializing in “green” building. A member of SCBWI, she enjoys visiting schools, meeting her readers and sharing her passion for writing with students of all ages. Ellen considers herself even luckier than The Lucky Lizard to live the writer’s life!