Hi! I’m MK. I spent the first half of my life wandering the Georgia woods with neighborhood friends. Then the Caribbean held the heartbeat of the second half of my life, first the Bahamas and then St Thomas. After a family relocation to China was cut short by a hasty evacuation that turned into a few hazy covid years on Cape Ann, Boston’s north shore, I now (somewhat accidentally) call North Carolina home.

Raising two mini sports-beast daughters (who never leave for practice without a library book in hand!) we’re making the most of our unexpected US life. Three years in and I no longer have to google stuff like “how to take out the trash” or “should you show up early or late for kid birthday parties.”

Throughout every transition, books were my constant friend. Even my last few days in China were spent reading The Secret Garden to my girls in our sleeper compartment on 20 hour train ride. I believe stories are world-changing. Young readers need concrete ways to grapple with the beliefs they’re forming about the world around them. Readers will have a much easier time arguing if Katniss should have ended up with Peeta or Gale than whether they believe diplomacy or force is the more valid method for combating injustice. Yet an answer to either questions stems from an answer to both. That is the gift of good storytelling. That is the storytelling I seek to do in my writing.