I grew up in the trees of Walden, New York....well, not very high up the trees, since I always got scared, but I did carve my name in a lot of low hanging boughs. I had an older sister, a dog, a cat, a million fish, and an imaginary pet hamster named, yup you guessed it, Hamisher. Why have an imaginary friend when you can have an imaginary friend that can fit in your pocket! I went to Wagner College and double majored in English and Studio Art, winning the award of "biggest dork" (aka first in my class) and writing plays which went on to be produced Off-Off-Broadway. Growing up I was obsessed with two things: Weird animals and comics. Whenever I went to the library I would sit in the "do not take" reference section and pour over the 600 page Macmillan Illustrated Animal Encyclopedia. I also always loved reading comics--Calvin and Hobbes, The Far Side, and I wore out my copy of the Muppets: Short, Green and Handsome--but it wasn't until I started to get into webcomics that I also fell in love with the idea of writing comics. Now my day job is designing books for Workman Publishing and my night job is writing picture books and graphic novels about a not-so-imaginary-anymore hyperactive hamster named Hamisher and all the animals I've always loved. The world is a very lovely place.