About Carol
Where were you born?
Baltimore, Maryland
Where do you live now?
My husband Ralph and I split our time between Baltimore (where our daughter Julia lives)
and Charleston, South Carolina (where our other daughter Kate and our grandson Jaden live)
No, I don’t have a crush on Jaden, even though he’s much cuter than me. He would be great on my book jackets. We’d sell way more books. He’s only five months old, though, so there’s a credibility issue.
I mean, who’d believe a creature that drools and stares at light bulbs could have a vocabulary sufficient to power a book? He is, however, inventive with language. He has one awesome word so far: “ha glu.” I believe it comes from the Latin.
Where did you go to school?
All my life I've been searching for my academic home. I graduated with my Bachelor degree and Honors in English from Cornell University and then got my Juris Doctor degree from University of California at Davis. I could have made a living as a lawyer, I passed the California Bar with my magic pen, but law just wasn't for me. I was waiting in a waiting room (of all places) for a law job when my eyes fell on a magazine that quoted from The Raisin in the Sun: What happens to a dream deferred? ... does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? My dream deferred, of course, was writing. So I leapt upon my trusty steed and rode off to write on my own a bunch of years. I published three books and raised two girls, but then I shattered my lance so I hopped on another horse and galloped off again to Vermont College of Fine Arts, and their writing for Children and Young Adults. This last place, VCFA, is the home I was searching for all along. I graduated in 2017.
Are you published?
I'm the author of three novels—Walk Among Birches (Sourcebooks 2001, adult); The Climbing Tree (St. Martin’s Press, adult), and Who’s the Kid Around Here, Anyway? (Fawcett 1989, young adult). In 2017, my short story “Sisters” won the VCFA short story award.
Where do you get your ideas?
From our dog Cali. She’s a sable-and-white Sheltie who thinks she’s the Queen of England. Seriously, I can tell you more about how I find my ideas by way of Max's Heart.