About Ricki

Welcome! I’m so glad you’re here. I’d offer you oatmeal cookies and hot chocolate, but my web oven just caught fire and I’m totally out of marshmallows. Lemonade? Chips and salsa?

So . . . my life experiences. Many have involved animals. I’ve always had pets, including dogs, cats, hamsters, mice, rats, ducks, turtles, rabbits, parakeets, chinchillas, fish, and a bantam rooster who was not cut out for city life.

My most important experiences have involved my friends and family. I have a husband and five kids—two step sons, a biological son and daughter, and an adopted daughter. For a while our family also included a foster daughter from Minneapolis, a teen-ager from Bosnia, and a physically challenged toddler from Haiti.

I hold an MFA from Vermont College in Writing for Children and Young Adults, and am a former winner of the Loft Mentor Series. My poetry and essays for adults have been published in a variety of journals and magazines, including The Threepenny Review, Passages North, and The Christian Century. My work has also appeared in Highlights Magazine and Ladybug Magazine. I'm currently working on a contemporary young adult novel and a middle grade biography.

I grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, and have lived in Berkeley, Los Angeles, Chicago, Holden Village, and currently Minneapolis. Holden Village is located in the Cascade Mountains and gets about twenty feet of snow in the winter. When we lived there, our family experienced lots of roofalanches, great snow shoeing, and a strong community of friends. I’ve traveled to lots of places, but Holden is my favorite because I feel especially loved and accepted there.

Besides writing, homemaking, and parenting, I’ve also worked as an elementary school teacher, a cocktail waitress, a head housekeeper, a puppeteer, and the producer/ director of The Children’s Summer Shakespeare Company. I’ve run eight marathons, not because I’m a good athlete, but because I’d rather be moving than sitting still.

Speaking of traveling . . . if I could travel anywhere with anyone, I’d float down the Nile with Cleopatra, or relax with Django Reinhardt in his Gypsy caravan. How about you?

You’ve been listening so quietly. Is there anything you’d like to say? Email Ricki.

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