Anna is enjoying a long, successful career writing and illustrating children’s books. Her first, Taste the Raindrops was published in 1983 and followed in 1984 by Come to the Meadow and Maybe a Band-Aid Will Help. Her 55th, Winter Lights has just been published.

Her interest in drawing and writing began in early childhood. At the age of seven, Anna told her parents that she wanted to make books for children when she grew up. Later on, she took art courses in college as well as classes in Children’s Literature and Child Care and Management, after which she decided to study on her own. She then taught elementary school for three years, while continuing with her writing and drawing. Like many of our famous and well-known authors, she collected numerous encouraging letters of rejections.

In 1981 she was thrilled to receive her first acceptance letter for a book she both wrote and illustrated. It is pictured on the left and as you can see, is a good indication of just how much her art enchants children and adults alike.

In 2001, Anna began publishing poetry books and illustrating them with her colourful, spectacular, beautiful quilts. Pieces: A Year in Poems and Quilts, her 50th book for children, won an award for children’s poetry. Winter Lights is her second book of poetry and quilts. She also made the lovely, hand-appliquéd quilts for Whistling, a picture book by Elizabeth Partridge.

The first quilt she remembers is the one on her bed when she was little. It was made of mostly dark-coloured woolen squares with a few brightly coloured ones interspersed. The fabrics likely came from coats and suits no longer in use and the quilt was tied. Anna remembers its heaviness and its warmth.

Anna’s mother inspired her interest in quilts and quilting. She admired her mother’s work, enjoyed looking through her quilt books and magazines, and began thinking about using quilts to illustrate her poetry. So far, all of the quilts she has made are those connected with her poetry and books, though she did start one for herself earlier this year.

In 1995, her family decided to surprise her mother with the gift of a memory quilt. Everyone made a square and Anna made several. Her mother helped with advice and with answers to all of Anna’s questions, not realizing that these quilt blocks were for her, because Anna had told her that she was thinking of making a quilt to illustrate her poems, which of course, she was.

The following year, she created her first quilt for her book Good Heavens. Anna designed it by drawing on Manila paper with crayons, then tracing her patterns onto freezer paper. Anna explains, “It was all pretty much trial and error. None got thrown out, but I did do ripping and resewing until I got what I wanted." The result, as you can see to the left, is an eye-catching, pieced quilt of yellow suns and white moons and stars on a background of deep greens and blues. As she worked on the quilts that followed, she made many calls and several visits to her mother for how-to information.

Needlework has also been a part of Anna’s life since childhood. Embroidery, crochet, knitting, sewing, and doll making are among her many skills. She has even made dolls of some of the children in her books. Needlework is also an important part of her books. Children’s beds are covered by colourful quilts, dolls and stuffed toys are played with by children, Moms sew, and quilts make great playhouses.

Anna’s parents were very influential in her creative life. Her mother was always working on at least one project (sewing clothes for the family, hooking rugs, crocheting lace doilies) and her father did carpentry, built furniture, go-carts, and model ships, cars and airplanes. Anna watched as they tried new things and figured out how to do them. As she says, “In our house, not knowing was never an excuse not to try something.”

Asked to describe the way she works, Anna replies, “ For the pictures in my books, my purpose is to tell the story, so I look for the moments that will do that best. Whistling was a particular challenge in that way because I had a vision of the skies growing lighter and lighter, as the father and sun wake before dawn and then eventually ‘whistle up the sun.’ I could see the brightening sky so easily, but the challenge was to show that sky and be able to move in close to show what was happening with the boy and his father, how hard the child was trying to whistle, how his father comforted him, and so on. Those intimate moments needed close-ups. It was when I got the idea to use the quilter's technique of inset boxes or frames, that I knew I could do those illustrations in fabric as I wanted, showing both the changing sky and the story of the boy and his dad.”

One of the inspirations for Winter Lights was Anna’s daughter’s year as an exchange student in Sweden. Anna says, “ She went to school in the dark and left in the dark, not seeing any daylight at all. She said it was very depressing, but so wonderful to start the holidays with Lucia [Swedish Festival of Lights] and that all through the season people kept lighted stars in their windows. It made her happy to see all those stars in all that darkness.”  

Anna was asked to read holiday stories at Grey Towers , a National Historic Landmark in Pennsylvania and that experience was her second inspiration for the book. She explains, “I wanted to include more than Christmas, but couldn't find many books that didn't seem to be doing more teaching about the other holidays, instead of joyfully celebrating them. I tried a number of versions of my story, but they didn't work as a celebration any more than the others. I even tried it as one long poem, which was a little better but still not right. Finally, just as Pieces was being published, I got the idea to do it as a collection of poems. I did a lot of research on the holidays that I don't normally celebrate myself, looking especially for the joy a young child might feel as he or she celebrated with family and friends. When I showed my beginnings to my editor she suggested that I add some non-holiday lights as well.”

“For both Pieces and Winter Lights, I went to quilt shows and poured through books and catalogs, noting any images that seemed to fit with the ideas of my poems. It was partly the wonderful glowing light in many quilts that inspired me to write about the light, so that I could make those sorts of quilts. It's a matter of letting things float, opening up to the possibilities, and then once something starts to ‘take,’ playing with it until I figure out how to make it work. I have dozens of files on my computer of experiments I do on the way to coming up with a design that works.”

When asked about her various drawing styles, Anna responded, “Each time I try to do what is right for that particular story. I also like to keep trying new things and challenging myself to grow. When I began work on Pieces, using fabric was something very new and different.”

Anna has done newspaper interviews, a reading on radio, visited schools, participated in autograph parties in bookstores, and spoken at a Children's Author Tea at the invitation of local librarians and teachers. 

“All of it is exciting and wonderful and more than I ever dared imagine, but nothing equals the thrill of holding that first copy of my first book in my hands for the very first time. My life has been full indeed, with a wonderful family and work I love,” says Anna.

Anna's website is an interesting adventure in itself, one she has created herself with technical support from her husband, Gary. Be sure to visit and learn much more about her. See, among other things, pictures of her mother’s quilts, the memory quilt her family made for her mother, the children’s books she has written and illustrated, and her poetry and quilt books. Visit her Classroom pages and download the activity guide to go with Winter Lights which you will thoroughly enjoy using when reading it to the special children in your life. Look for the activities she includes for children, including making a quilt online. Hear Anna read four of her books while the pages turn.

Click here to see three more photos of Anna and her quilts.