Lemon Trees and Bumblebees

Diane was raised by her parents and a “village" of four immigrant grandparents who fed her stories and songs in five languages. Communication was rich and colorful. Her early roots grew beneath a towering oak tree planted on the day her mother was born. She wrote her first poem there about leaf shadows when she was four.

A love of nature grew as Diane became fascinated with birds, bees, and lots of curious creatures. As an adult, she took a detour from writing to open a commercial/residential interior design business for nearly 20 years. Eventually, she returned to university life, studying environmental biology and literature. Her design clients, and the setting, detail, and plotting of various projects provided preparation for any genre, but her favorite is writing children’s stories which share the music in words and life.

Diane’s writing, drawings, photos, and poems have been published in various magazines and journals. Awards include first place in a Gabriel Garcia Marquez fiction contest, and first place in a Mississippi Poetry Society contest. She has given workshops and judged writing contests for the Writer’s Guild of Acadiana. Her regular essay columns appeared in The Daily Advertiser, a large Louisiana newspaper, along with personal wildlife essays in The Louisiana Conservationist magazine, and others. Highlights for Children magazine editors chose one of her articles as their “Arts Feature of the Year."

Another frontier for Diane is her first nonfiction interactive ebook, Lemon Trees and Bumblebees. Other books are works in progress. Originally from Texas, Diane lives on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, surrounded by woods and water, with her husband, Jim. They have a daughter, two grandsons, and a little firecracker of a great-granddaughter who loves books.