M. JANE HAWKINS
CHILDREN'S WRITER

I am not one of those writers who had the writing bug as a young child. It was a condition I caught sometime in my 30s but it would go into remission from time to time. I have, however, always loved books. Growing up, we had a “playhouse,” aka storeroom, in the backyard. During the summer my friends and I would create a lending library from our book collections and check out books to the neighborhood kids. As an English major in college, I naturally wrote a lot of essays, etc. After college, I wrote a poem like the one I assigned my Freshman Composition class the one semester I taught at a Junior College. It honors my father and was read at his funeral so is special to me. I didn’t really decide to take my writing seriously until my 60s. I am a late bloomer.

 

After staying busy with church work and volunteering, I dusted off the 10-year-old original draft of my story about a truck and a boy. I got serious about writing for children, joined SCBWI-OK, went to conferences and workshops, and learned, learned, learned. That truck-and-a-boy story became A Truck Named Tony, my debut picture book. Tony's next adventure is expected to be available the fall of 2021. I have several picture book manuscripts as well as an early reader and non fiction picture book in various stages of revision - the really, really hard part of writing.