It was during the seventh grade, when Laurie realized she might have some talent writing. Her English teacher told the class to write a short story, but Laurie got carried away and wrote a science fiction adventure which ended up eleven pages long. As she recalls, her teacher and classmates were quite impressed -- for the story's length if nothing else. But this was the first time anyone outside her family had praised her writing and was a turning point in Laurie's life.

Laurie continued writing throughout high school and college, but a career writing children's books seemed beyond her reach. That was something other people did -- not someone from Hays, Kansas. No one in Laurie's life knew anything about getting a story or book published, so she turned her attention to teaching. Perhaps she could share her love of children's books through teaching. Even so, Laurie never lost the idea that someday she might still write a children's book. It would take more than a decade to make that happen.

One cold winter day, the mother of one of her preschool students, happened to mention that her daughter had wanted to buy a flower for her room so it would seem like spring. Laurie thought that was a great idea for a story, but she wanted her main character to share the flowers instead of taking them home. Since she had been watching a lot of Sesame Street with her two sons, she decided that was the perfect place to set her story of friendship and sharing.

Still knowing very little about the world of publishing, Laurie decided to do some research. She discovered that only two book publishers, Random House and Western Publishing Company (which published Golden Books) were publishing books about Sesame Street. A writer friend told her to look in Children's Writer's and Illustrators Market for the publisher's addresses.

Laurie sent query letters to Random House and Western Publishing Company asking if they would be interested in reading her manuscript. Random House replied that they only used in-house publications, but Western Publishing wanted to read it.

In time, Western Publishing sent the story to Children's Television Workshop for their approval and Big Bird Brings Spring To Sesame Street was published as a Little Golden Book in 1985. In a funny twist of fate, Random House reissued the story as a Jellybean book in 2000.

Shortly after writing Big Bird Brings Spring To Sesame Street, Laurie went back to teaching full-time. She went on to become an award-winning teacher but she never gave up on her dream of some day writing more children's books. After 20 years of teaching, that day has come. These days, Laurie keeps busy writing fiction, nonfiction plays, and poetry.

One of her recent manuscripts is the story of The Clumsy Dragon. It was also the basis for a children's musical that Laurie wrote with her nephew Kirk Smith. The Clumsy Dragon was inspired by an event that happened in one of her preschool classes fifteen years ago. Laurie noticed a student staggering around the room singing, "I'm a clumsy dragon, I'm a clumsy dragon." She knew it would be a great title for a book, but she didn't realize it would take so long to figure out what kind of story to put with the title. If nothing else, being a children's writer teaches patience.

It turns out The Clumsy Dragon is about a young wizard named Alzabar and a clumsy dragon called Mirabelle, who must overcome a number of challenges as they become friends.

When Laurie was a teacher, her favorite part of the day was reading books to her students. She loved teaching children to read and enjoy books. But she could only teach a few students each year. Writing children's books lets her reach more children than she will ever have the chance to meet. So for her, writing is a natural extension of teaching.

Laurie has always been proud that Big Bird Brings Spring to Sesame Street was a Little Golden Book. She knew lots of children would read her book because it was so affordable and parent's wouldn't be afraid to let their children carry it around. Like a beloved but bedraggled stuffed animal, a favorite book is often the one with a ripped cover and grimy pages. To Laurie, that's high praise indeed. Her goal has always been to write books that children love.