Nurse Florence, What is Polymicrogyria? follows a middle-school girl who wants to learn about a condition her cousin has and asks the school nurse for help. What was the inspiration for this story? 

I asked my illustrator if she had a family member with a rare disease, and she said yes, which was the topic of this book.  Every third book that my illustrators do with the company is about a rare disease.  We believe the company is providing a public service and needs to help all of the families with their medical education.  Families with rare diseases need reliable information too, and we are providing that service.

One thing that Nurse Florence discusses with students in this book is how to find reputable medical information online. How did you approach integrating this important topic into your story?

This disease is very rare, and it was hard to find good information about it.  I used my educational training from my degrees to guide my search and then put that process or steps into a book that was understandable.  Our kids need to learn how to sort through a lot of information, and we made an attempt to give a disciplined approach to it.

In your mind, what’s the best part about being an author?

The best part about being an author is the creative process of writing.  Sometimes it is exhilarating when the words just flow through your fingers to the keyboard.  For me, it is also a peaceful adventure writing a new book.  This may sound strange, but sometimes when I write, I teach myself as I synthesize information into a new insight.  Writing is fun!

What would fans be most surprised to learn about you?

The thing that seems to surprise people the most is when they learn that I have 5 college degrees.  I like to say that getting that many was the universe’s punishment for me stressing out my parents for dropping out of college (not once, but twice) during my first degree.  I got laser-focused on education, learned how to study, found joy in self-study, and found the educational system fun and rewarding once I learned how to succeed within the system.  I think I am finished getting advanced degrees.  I love being a children’s book author and being in the niche of researching intellectually stimulating topics and writing at an elementary level while still maintaining scientific accuracy.  I hope my love of learning is passed on to many kids through my books, but most importantly to my kids who are “required” to read all of the Nurse Florence books.  They do enjoy them, and I created the series for them to help ensure that they have at least a good health literacy level as an adult.  Too many adults in the country and the world have a low health literacy level.  Dow Creative Enterprises aims to increase everyone’s health literacy since parents are reporting learning new things with each Nurse Florence book as they read them with their children.  Let’s leave the world a better place than what we found it.

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