Inspiration for The Beef Princess
of Practical County

“When Mr. and Mrs. Jim Darling named their first daughter ‘Precious’ everyone in town wanted to puke.”

That was it.  That was the very first line written of The Beef Princess of Practical County.  I don’t know where it came from except that I had been contemplating unusual names. And I wondered about the name “Precious.”  And from some tiny little place in deepest part of my brain came an idea.  What if there was a girl named Precious and her last name was Darling? 

That one idea grew into a character.  And the character grew into more characters and a setting and before long, a story was born.  And several years later, The Beef Princess of Practical County became my first middle grade novel.