I didn’t recognize it while it was happening, but here I am now, the author of two children’s picture books whose main characters feature ungulates. How did this happen?

It took sixteen years for me to write THE MOLLYS B., my picture book biography about a heifer fleeing a Montana abattoir, but that was all subconscious writing because when that story fell into my lap, it arrived nearly complete. And in the two years it took for me to get it ready for publication, it went through twelve drafts. It was heaven-sent. And made of magic.

Neville, perhaps the embodiment of his dromedary personality, gave me a lot more trouble. It took twenty-eight drafts to get his story right. How did this goofy, gangly, tenderhearted camel galumph his way into my life?