About me
I was born in Queens, New York, back in the early middle dark ages, and grew up in Syosset, Long Island. Long Island is the fish-shaped piece of land east of New York City with many rivers, inlets, and islands of its own that I only discovered when I learned how to fly. My dad was an artist, and my mom designs and sews quilts, has hooked rugs, and does all kinds of needlework. My brother and I grew up playing instruments, and the whole family played recorders together. Both my parents were folk dancers and the house was always filled with music. Creating with words, sounds, movement, and color was considered a very good way to live life. When I was little, my dad would open his big can of wet clay and give me a hunk to work with, or he'd tape a large piece of paper to his drafting table and sit me up on the stool so I could draw. I spent hours drawing and painting while he worked on his projects. He was also a calligrapher and an inventor with seven patents. Why do I write? Because I love words and because I can't not write. Like everyone else, I live in the world, I read and listen to the news, and I have expectations and hopes and disappointments. There are things I'm afraid of and things I know very little about. Writing is my best way to explore them. My first short story was published in a magazine called The Creative Writer in fifth grade. I’ve written many stories for Highlights for Children and other children’s magazines, poetry, picture books, and now I'm having a blast creating murder and mayhem in the fictional town of Port Thomas, NY, on the Island's north shore. When I'm not working on my own projects, I write articles, brochures, ads, and website content at Stony Brook University with a terrific group of creative people. In the old days I wrote on yellow legal pads in pencil, but I like working on my computer much better. I'm using a terrific program called Scrivener to write my second book in the Emma Trace mystery series. And I love love love my e-reader! My favorite children's booksCarl Sandburg's THE WEDDING PROCESSION OF THE RAG DOLL AND THE BROOM HANDLE
Crockett Johnson's HAROLD AND THE PURPLE CRAYON Ruth Krauss's THE CARROT SEED Robert McCloskey's BLUEBERRIES FOR SAL and MAKE WAY FOR DUCKLINGS Kay Thompson's ELOISE All the fairy books by Andrew Lang Judi Barrett and Ron Barrett's CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS David Small's IMOGENE'S ANTLERS Leo Lionni's SWIMMY Margaret Wise Brown's GOODNIGHT MOON Virginia Lee Burton'sTHE LITTLE HOUSE Esphyr Slobodkina's CAPS FOR SALE Eric Carle's THE VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR Wanda Gag's MILLIONS OF CATS Donald Crews' TRUCK Raymond Briggs' THE SNOWMAN Maurice Sendak's WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE and IN THE NIGHT KITCHEN Frank Asch's MOONCAKE Tomie De Paola's STREGA NONA Jan Brett's THE MITTEN Nancy White Carlstrom'sJESSE BEAR, WHAT WILL YOU WEAR? Ezra Jack Keats'sTHE SNOWY DAY by Ezra Jack Keats Audrey Wood and Don Wood's KING BIDGOOD'S IN THE BATHTUB Ann McGovern's TOO MUCH NOISE John Burningham's AVOCADO BABY Norman Bridwell's books about CLIFFORD THE BIG RED DOG Poetry: Christina Rossetti, Walter de la Mare, Robert Louis Stevenson, Ogden Nash. My favorite book of poems - which I still have today - was a Big Golden Book called THE GOLDEN BOOK OF POETRY (see sidebar) 
Copyright © Toby Speed 2011. All rights reserved. |
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