Candice Ransom is the author of more than one hundred children’s books—picture books, chapter books, easy readers, mid-grade novels, biographies, nonfiction, even board books. She also teaches writing for children in Hollins University’s summer MA/MFA program. She is very busy, which is why I’m writing this letter.

We live in Fredericksburg, Virginia, “America’s Most Historic City.” By “we,” I mean Candice, her husband Frank, yours truly, Xenia, the grumpiest, oldest cat in the world, and Persnickety, the snooty calico who turns her nose up at caviar. Despite my devastating good looks and charming personality, I am only in ten of Candice’s books (the whole Time Spies series, but still, I should be in more)

Three things you don’t know about Candice:

She once kept a flea circus in a cologne bottle, but the cologne was still in the bottle so the fleas drowned. If you shook the bottle, it was like a creepy snow globe. She still talks to her childhood toy, a 55-year-old stuffed elephant named Ellsworth. She is a terrible cook (thank heavens my food comes in cans). Browse around . . . and stop by often!