Around the same time I was practicing as a storyteller, there was a wonderful reader's theater company where I lived in Humboldt County, California. I thought it might be good part-time work for me. Well, it was that and much more, because I fell in love with performing reader's theater for kids.

Your focus in RT seems to be on scripts for children in an educational environment (as opposed to, say, RT as a valid theatre genre). Why is this ?

My professional RT background was in performing it for kids in schools. When I left Humboldt County, I had a number of scripts I had done, and so decided to try to publish them. That book became Stories on Stage, published by H. W. Wilson. By that time, I had become a published children's author myself, and I adapted my own picture books, and distributed the scripts to teachers and librarians via the Internet, primarily as a way of promoting the books.

At this point, though, the scripts have become an end in themselves, as they've proven themselves far more effective vehicles for getting my stories around than my picture books are. I've both benefited from and helped create an ever-increasing interest in RT in the classroom, simply because it's such an incredibly effective way to interest kids in reading. But my basic interest still is not in the medium or its educational effectiveness, but in the stories themselves. I aim my scripts at classrooms because that's where there's most interest in using them.

What do you see as the future of RT in its various forms?

It seems to be growing, but I really don't try much to keep in touch with developments in the field as a whole. Again, it's the stories that concern me most, not the format. People are always asking me, "Why don't you script something about the Constitution, or about substitute teachers." Well, because I don't have any stories about those. I script what I write -- or in some cases stories by others that I love -- not just what others say they need.

Apart from your professional life, what defines you as an individual?

A lack of focus.