born & raised – in Arlington Heights, Illinois…so long ago that we played in barns and the construction sites of hundreds of new neighborhood houses being built. They piled up dirt from the new foundations and they waited so long that for years we had prairie-covered hills and tadpole-filled creeks and a bicycle route to the park over those hills.
current home – Champaign-Urbana, IL.
family – husband, Morgan Powell (he’s a composer and jazz trombonist) and Treeing Walker Coonhound, Lil.
family living elsewhere
one big brother (CA), and his awe-inspiring daughter (CO) (who does this website)
one big sister, her son (snow board champ and restauranteur), and her daughter (soccer champ and soon-to-be doctor) (NV)
6 cousins who live all over the world
2 lovely step-daughters and their families (IL)
more places I’ve lived
Paros, Greece – I traveled to this Greek island to dance, the summer I turned 20 and lived there for the summer.
London, England – I lived in London for 2 and a half years to study at the London School of Contemporary Dance and started my professional dance career there.
New York City – I moved to New York and lived there for a year, but it seemed like seven. Alvin Ailey had given me a scholarship to the American Dance Center where I studied while producing my own concerts and dancing with the Rudy Perez Dance Theatre.
Winnipeg – I apprenticed with the Winnipeg Contemporary Dancers for a long hard winter of 20 below zero weather.
Philadelphia – while earning an MFA in Dance at Temple University, I lived in fabulous Philly 1985-87.
Urbana-Champaign, Illinois – I’ve lived in Urbana-Champaign, since 1975, except for two years in Philadelphia, and for fourteen years out in the country of east central Illinois. That’s a lot, isn’t it? This is where I based my dance company, One Plus One. From this great university town, we traveled throughout North and South America, the Caribbean and Europe.
education
London School of Contemporary Dance – diploma
University of Illinois – Urbana Champaign – BFA in Dance
Temple University in Philadelphia – MFA in Dance
University of Illinois – Urbana Champaign – MS in Library and Information Science
other careers, past and present
dancer/choreographer in London, Winnipeg, and New York City, and with my own dance company ONE PLUS ONE which traveled all over the Americas (North, Central, and South America), Europe, the Caribbean, and allowed me many adventures…some of which I can write about.
lithographer (printing from large stone slabs)
trapeze artist
ballet teacher
modern dance teacher
composition teacher
mime
dancer; I still dance in my stories, some of them. I also play percussion instruments occasionally. Josephine is about a dancer, so I dance the Charleston when I do Josephine presentations. Recently I was immersed in tango; now I’m studying tap dance.
librarian (substitute librarian, retired)
dance water therapy instructor
awards and fellowships – from the National Endowment for the Arts, Illinois Arts Council, Ragdale Foundation, Illinois State Library, Temple University, Creative Arts Institute, Boston Globe Horn Book Honor, Robert F. Sibert Honor, Bologna Ragazzi Honor.
regular days – I write for the first part of the day when I’m sharpest. Later I might walk around our in-town lake with Lil and think about what I’m going to write later. Some days I skate (in-line) at Meadowbrook, which is prairie with paved paths. Sometimes I go to the gym and work out; and I play and workout in water 3-4 days per week.
current projects –
Cave of the Heart: The Story of Martha Graham narrative nonfiction in verse (Chronicle 202x)
A yet-to-be-titled Woman’s Suffrage Project (Chronicle 202x) in three major sections with additional sections about pioneering POC fighting for the vote:
- Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton in the 19th Century
- Alice Paul and Lucy Burns in the 1910s
- Fannie Lou Hamer, Victoria Gray Adams, and Annie Devine in the 1960s [with assistance from Lisa Brathwaite]
Sunday Before Sundown (Bloomsbury 2023) in collaboration with Lesa Cline-Ransome, illustrated by James Ransome.
Duck Duck Goose (Astra 202x), a compilation of poems that tells a story—my first book for the very young!
My agent, Caryn Wiseman of Andrea Brown Literary Agency, is looking for homes for MASTER OF SILENCE: THE STORY OF MARCEL MARCEAU and LETTER TO THE WORLD, among others.
I’m presently working on a Dance Memoir.