I'm Ann

What? You can't see my face? Neither could anyone else, while I was growing up. I always had my nose buried in a book. I even read while we were travelling. My family crossed the U.S. in a car 9 times while I was a child. Did you know that you can read almost all of War and Peace in the time it takes to drive across Texas?

When I was a kid, I was going to be a detective, just like Nancy Drew. Then I was going to be a nurse, just like Cherry Ames. Then I was going to run away from home and live in the Metropolitan Museum in New York City, just like the kids in my favorite book, From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.

As you can see, I didn't do any of those things. Instead, I went to college, where I discovered literature professors, and had a revelation: I could actually get paid to read! I had to stay in college for a long time and read a lot to get a degree, of course--oh darn! I read my way to a B.A. at Gonzaga University, a small private college in Spokane, Washington. Then I decided I'd like to read in a different part of the country for a while, so I got my Master's at Boston College. But it was too cold there in the winter, so I moved to Los Angeles and read for my Ph.D. at USC. Now I teach English at L.A. Harbor College.

Along the way, I met my husband. He was an English major in college, too. The first time we met, he impressed me by quoting the last line of The Great Gatsby from memory. (Of course, I didn't know until after the wedding that that was the only line of literature that he could quote.)

My husband and I share several dogs who keep us busy.

And last (always save the best for last), there's our daughter, Lulu.

And of course, I spend as much time as possible reading (usually, since Lulu got here, in the middle of the night). Even now that I get paid for it, I still do it just for fun. I love mysteries; I read lots of children's books now; I try to keep up with the new fiction that comes out; and then there are all those nonfiction books, and all the books my friends recommend, and all the old books I somehow never got around to reading.

So many books...so little time...