"I always liked to make up stories, especially lying in bed at night before I fell asleep.

"It was not until I was twenty that I actually took up ceative writing. One of my favorite parts of the process was imagining myself in various characters' shoes, even if those characters - dragons for example - didn't wear shoes at all. A year later, in 1975, I graduated from Hamilton College andbegan a six-month internship at the New York Times Book Review.

"Since then I have been a full-time writer for children. I married my wife, Joan, in 1984,and we settled in my hometown of Lexington, Massachusetts, where we live with our two sons, Andrew and Peter.

"When I feel like I've spent enough time hunched over my computer, I like to play soccer and softball, and read books written by other people."

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