• I never dreamed I’d fall in love with a dung beetle…

    And yet, here I am, buried in heaps of poo and loving it.

    Did you know that dung beetles are the only animal on the planet, besides humans, that use the stars to navigate?

    Or that they are the strongest animals on earth by weight?

    Or that there are an estimated 7000 to 9000 different species of dung beetles? It’s like that warning that you’re never more than six feet from a spider. Watch out! That beetle’s gonna getcha!

    Dung beetles are seriously so cool.

    I’ve been working on turning a poem I wrote into an informational fiction PB with sidebar info and backmatter. Combining rhyming poop humor with serious science takes more late nights than one might expect, but I’m done…at least for now. I’m hoping to receive some helpful feedback from a critique event that I signed up for, as well as from PB Party.

    Stay tuned. Hopefully one day I’ll be able to share my admiration of poo-loving beetles with kids all over the world.

  • 50 Precious Words 2026

    This is the second year I’ve entered #50PreciousWords, hosted by Vivian Kirkfield. The results were posted last Monday (March 31), and I was thrilled to learn I was awarded an honorable mention in the category of Informational Fiction. I decided my jazzy little poem deserved some dancing bees and a disco ball, so here you go. (That disco ball took some figuring out, haha.)

    At exactly 50 words, here’s my entry:

    Hive Jive

    A buzzy-bee bumble–

    a jitterbug jumble–

    the hive is a rip-roaring joint!

    Each worker bee dances,

    increasing their chances

    of feeding their young—that’s the point.

    A toe-tapping mission

    of pollen provision,

    the swarm-sisters groove to the beat.

    Their wiggly-waggle

    will guide the whole gaggle

    in finding the tastiest treat!