Shannon, Terry Miller 1951-

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SHANNON, Terry Miller 1951-

Personal

Born May 27, 1951, in Los Angeles, CA; daughter of Fred Miller (an employee of Pacific Gas and Electric) and Bonnie Yates Miller Pieper (a school superintendent); married Craig Shannon (a United Parcel Service driver); children: Timothy, Aaron. Hobbies and other interests: Reading, cooking, watching movies, "playing with my grandchildren and dog," needlework, "gardening with my husband," strolling the beach.

Addresses

Agent— Scott Treimel, 434 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10003. E-mail— [email protected].

Career

Writer.

Member

Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators.

Writings

New Hampshire (nonfiction), Scholastic (New York, NY), 2002.

(With son, Timothy Warner) Tub Toys (picture book), illustrated by Lee Calderon, Tricycle Press (Berkeley, CA), 2002.

Oregon (nonfiction; part of "From Sea to Shining Sea" series), Scholastic (New York, NY), 2003.

Work represented in anthologies, including Chicken Soup for the Teacher's Soul, 2002, and KnitLit Too: Stories from Sheep to Shawl . . . and More Writing about Knitting, edited by Linda Roghaar and Molly Wolf, Three Rivers Press (New York, NY), 2004. Contributor of articles, poetry, recipes, and short stories to newspapers and magazines, including CBS Health Watch, Christian Science Monitor, Sunset, Teen, Cricket, and Reader's Digest. Contributor of book reviews to Canadian Senior Years, Book Reporter, Kids Reads, and Teen Reads. Contributor of books and short fiction to educational publishers, including McGraw-Hill/The Wright Group and Rigby Educational.

Work in Progress

The first installment in "a humorous, realistic, preteen series for girls," for Wizards of the Coast (Renton, WA), publication expected in 2005; a picture book, In My Very Own Yard, illustrated by Hiroe Nakata, for Hyperion (New York, NY), publication expected in 2006; several other picture books and novels; short fictional works for educational publishers.

Sidelights

Terry Miller Shannon told SATA: "I began writing at age forty-three when I realized my life was whizzing by and I hadn't attempted my lifelong dream of being an author. I absolutely love children's books (I'll never stop reading them); I'm still age twelve, no matter how many candles I find on my birthday cake. I hope my readers will think, 'What a great story!' when they've read one of my books." She continued, "My working habits are sporadic—I tend to follow any inspiration beckoning to me. Tub Toys, the picture book I wrote with my son Tim Warner, was inspired by his toddler's fascination with his bath. Writing and then publishing the book with him has been an amazing adventure—so much more fun shared!"

In Tub Toys, the little boy who narrates the book is fascinated primarily with the many toys he puts in the tub with him. He runs around his house rounding up the usual bath toys, such as a rubber duck, and more unexpected ones, like an eggbeater, until the tub is so full that he cannot fit in. His mother and father, exasperated with his toy-gathering, turn into an octopus and a shark, respectively. Illustrating the rhyming text are Lee Calderon's digital pictures, which are comical and highly stylized, displaying influences of 1950s and 1960s art and design. "Children will get a laugh out of this story," commented Maryann H. Owen in School Library Journal, while a Kirkus Reviews contributor called the book "energetic."

Tub Toys is aimed at preschoolers through first graders; Shannon's work also includes nonfiction books for the middle grades, New Hampshire and Oregon, and many nonfiction and fiction books and readers for the educational market. She advises aspiring writers to "read everything, especially in their chosen genre. They should write through their fear and not be intimidated by rejection. Try to concentrate on the pleasure of creating."