(Yes you read correctly. TRIPLETS! When I was 11 years old I had eight younger siblings. Two sets of twins, a set of triplets, and my baby sister. She and I had our own Single's Club.)
I loved Heidi so much as a child and it is still one of my favorite books. So much so, that I named the first of my three daughters Heidi.
In high school I took a creative writing class and it was then that I first learned that I enjoyed writing when emphasis wasn't on grammar and spelling. (Both of which I was and still am horrible at--thank heavens for spell and grammar check.) I like making things up. My daughters and siblings will tell you I often embellish stories and as a writer I get paid for it. It’s fun!
When my children were well settled in school, I began writing, selling short pieces to children’s magazines and working as a free-lance writer for my local paper in Pacific Palisades, CA. I eventually enrolled at Vermont College to pursue an MFA. There I met “My People,” a group of 100 plus other writers who would rather email than phone, who liked to hole up and hide away writing about a made up world, and would rather read than go out to a party. I found my voice in that wonderful environment and my creative thesis became my first published novel, Converting Kate, which garnered the following accolades: a 2008 ALA Best Book for Young Adults, a Kliatt: Editors' Choice, a New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age, and a CBC Notable Book.
In addition to working on several different writing projects, I team-teach “Writing the Middle Grade and Young Adult Novel” at The Writer’s Center (http://www.writer.org/beckieweinheimer), edit for hire, and volunteer at my local library.
This past summer, my husband and I had a dream come true when we purchased a tiny waterfront cottage in Maine. So when I'm not in our home in West Palm Beach, Florida, I'm writing beside my big picture window that looks out to our own cove of the Atlantic and woods. Or biking on our country road, or falling in mud while I learn to clam, or puttering in our vegetable and flower gardens, or swimming. Mostly swimming. I swim every day, rain or shine, morning or night, cold water or freezing. I think I am part dolphin.
I love reading books, editing them, and writing them. In fact, I love books so much that when I step into a bookstore or library I have the same reoccurring hopeful vision. I imagine the doors locking and everyone disappearing but me. I picture myself cozying up in a comfy padded chair, an endless supply of honey crisp apples at my reach, a working water fountain, and every lovely, wonderful, unread book waiting there just for me!