Hmmmm…I’m a writer, a mother, a wife, a
speaker, a fiddle player, an organizer, a teacher, a poet, a doodler (see dancer on the left and lots more of my doodles in my blog posts), a daughter, a sister, a performer, a storyteller, a peace activist, a traveler, a walker, a hiker, a meditator, an aqua farmer, a sun farmer, an animal lover, a cloud collector, a procrastinator, an infrequent twitterer (aprilhwayland) and facebooker. All!
I’ve run a marathon, backpacked through Europe, worked on a kibbutz in Israel, given birth underwater, run a 300-acre walnut farm, been a nanny for a Hollywood star, played both violin and fiddle, founded two folk music clubs and a hiking club, tutored street kids, and have been marketing manager in a Fortune 500 corporation.
But the hardest thing I’ve ever done was learn who I am and who I want to be in this world. Writing helped me learn this.
I grew up both in Santa Monica, California, and on our 300-acre family farm in Northern California. So I loved bicycling on city streets and driving tractor between rows of walnut trees; diving under the waves of the Pacific Ocean and drifting on a raft in the Feather River by our farm.
I had a great time at the University of California at Davis, and then I traveled, started a non-profit tutoring agency called Positive Education, and worked in the corporate world…until I rediscovered my love for writing.
I’ve published poetry and picture books and studied with extraordinary teachers, including poet Myra Cohn Livingston, with whom I worked for over ten years. It was Myra who suggested I write a collection of poems in the teen voice.
Writing in the teen voice and telling a story in unrhymed poems set me free. I found myself writing poems about my firsts—first period, first crush, first date, first published poem.
That book became GIRL COMING IN FOR A LANDING—a novel in poems.
It has a beautiful cover, gorgeous collage illustrations by Elaine Clayton, a section addressed to aspiring writers, and has won lots of awards.
My newest picture book, NEW YEAR AT THE PIER (Dial), is based on the way my southern California beach town’s Jewish community celebrates the Jewish New Year. It’s about how forgiveness and about how to say you’re sorry. It’s WONDERFULLY illustrated in watercolors by  StĂ©phane Jorisch
When I’m not writing, teaching in the UCLA Extension Writing Program or zipping around the world teaching workshops, I can be found walking to the ocean or hiking along Backbone Trail with friends, meditating in a secret room no one knows about (shhhh!), coaxing sugar snap peas to grow, collecting whimsical art with my husband, exploring California with my college-age son, fiddling with a folk music group or playing with the oldest dog in the world, Rosie.
I am active in local and national politics. My very smart husband says I am “saving the world one email at a time.” I hope it’s true.
My Family!