, K. A. Nuzum, am a native Coloradoan (and saying "Coloradoan" instead of "Coloradan" is a definite concession to the Easterners in our state). I am from the wild, wild eastern plains, where the winds whip up to 120mph in January and the temperature in August can rise to a 107 dry degrees. I am a WESTERNER, and proud of it.

There were three things honored in my manless home as I grew to age ten with a widow woman mother. The first was Jack Paar; I have nothing to say about that. The second thing was BOOKS. My mother loved books, my sister loved books, I loved books. We all loved writers. The third thing honored in my home was COWBOYS. I spent the Sunday afternoons of my early youth at a local ranch with my sister, relaxing in the bucket seats of her pink De Soto, watching local cowboys wrestle local steers.

I began writing stories in third grade. My first story "The Adventures of Super Star" was composed on one of many Thursday evenings of elementary school that I spent at the local bowling alley with my girlfriend and her parents. The parents bowled, my friend and I wrote stories.

But as I grew, other muses beckoned me. A love for somersaults and backbends evolved into a love of dancing when I hit adolescence. Mainly, ballroom dancing. Too many Fred Astaire, too many Gene Kelly movies late night after Jack Paar. I spent my late teens and twenties following the rhythm muse, dancing for the two main franchise studios, Fred Astaire in Denver, Colorado and Arthur Murray in Columbus, Ohio.

When my dancing shoes wore thin I returned to school at Colorado University and earned B.A.s in Comparative Religions and Environmental Conservation.

I fell in love with a pilot and explored the Baja Peninsula and the Yucatan Peninsula from the co-pilot's seat of a l939 rag-wing, tail-dragging Luscombe . . . and wrote first-person narratives for private pilot magazines.

And when that wore thin? I wrote feature gardening articles for a regional magazine, for I had cultivated a love of green things when my mom married my adoptive father, a local nurseryman, Wayne Nuzum, and I followed in his very large footsteps, becoming an Advanced Master Gardener with the CSU Cooperative Extension Office for a decade.

After his death, I took over his 33-year-old radio show GUIDE to GARDENING and answered gardening questions from Front Range gardeners on the air for six years. I married, had two boys, and started collecting pets.

Currently, the zoo includes: three horses, three cats, five dogs, one pot-bellied pig (whom I speak to only from a distance because of his belligerence), three chickens (hens who will not deign to lay eggs in the nest boxes, but only on the floor of the chicken coop), one gerbil, one hamster (currently in chemotherapy), one rabbit, and a tank of tropical fish.

As my boys matured, I returned to my first, my most abiding love: writing. I earned my M.F.A. from Vermont College of Union Institute and University in July 2003 in Writing for Children and Young Adults.

My first novel, A SMALL WHITE SCAR, was published by Joanna Cotler Books / HarperCollins and debuted in August 2006. It has been nominated as an ALA Best Book for Young Adults and named a Top Ten First Novel by Booklist.

My second novel, THE LEANIN' DOG, is the story of a young girl with agoraphobia, a dog with claustrophobia, and their friendship. It is scheduled for publication in the fall of 2008, also from Joanna Cotler Books / HarperCollins.

Currently, with my totally tolerant husband, my two adolescent boys, and all the animals, I thrive on a small farm, still in eastern Colorado.