Summer lives in North Texas with her charming husband, three hilarious kids, a Maine coon cat named Emme, and a yellow lab named Atticus. Before spinning tales about mutant mushrooms, she once worked as a science reporter for her university’s newspaper, where she wrote on topics like nanotech tweezers, poultry farm pollution, and the nighttime habits of spiders and snakes.
For fun, she enjoys exploring new places with the family, playing tennis, and dreaming up ideas for her next book.
On Writing
Summer’s always been a daydreamer and still remembers sitting in her second-grade classroom, imagining she was a My Little Pony who could fly out the window to fantasy worlds filled with make-believe friends. As she got older, her daydreams grew up but they didn’t vanish. She’d tell herself all sorts of stories with a cast of ever-changing characters. In college, she majored in Journalism and worked as a writer in a variety of roles. That experience helped her learn the nuts and bolts of writing, but her favorite part of storytelling is still the imagining. Sprouting wings and flying to worlds unknown.
Favorites:
TV shows and movies – Psych, Lost, Wayward Pines, Twelve Monkeys, The Scarlet Pimpernel, The Twilight Zone, The Office, Fringe, The Greatest Showman
Books – Three Times Lucky, Because of Winn Dixie, Wonder, Anne of Green Gables, Hatchet, The War that Saved My Life, The Giver, Bridge to Terabithia, The House of the Scorpion, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, Hunger Games, Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes, The Hiding Place, All the Light We Cannot See, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Fever 1793, Rebecca, Persuasion, The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, Lord of the Rings, To Kill a Mockingbird, Jane Eyre, the Bible
