I felt like a princess! My favorite part of every recital was just before the curtain opened, when the dancers waited breathlessly in their places, bathed in the lavender glow of the red and blue overhead lights. This picture shows one of my favorite costumes with a bodice of black velvet, a pink skirt with sparkles, and a tiara made of a pink ostrich plume. The tutus were a work of art, with layers and layers of ruffles made of a stiff fabric called tarleton. My mother was an expert seamstress and made all of my costumes.

I took ballet lessons from the age of three through high school. I think my chicken picture books had their first inspiration way back then. There was always a shy one, a bully, and a nosey hen who had to poke her beak in everybody else's business. They had real personalities, much like a group of kids. At one point in my life, I thought everybody had chickens. I enjoyed watching the chickens interact with each other. My grandparents on my mother's side of the family had a small flock of chickens, too, and so did our next-door neighbors in the city of Rochester. Since I was an only child, and my bachelor uncles didn't have any children, my only playmates were the chickens. We spent two weeks on the farm every summer. My Grandma Springer, Uncle Ray, and Uncle Bill had a big chicken farm on Long Island, NY.

I filled dozens of notebooks with my illustrated stories. I began to draw and write my own comics, with speech balloons for the dialogue. I read them in the prescription room of my father’s drug store, when I was supposed to be checking in the new shipment of magazines each week. I loved all kinds of books - even comic books. She is the one who taught me how to read way beyond my grade level when I was in second grade. My mother, Hattie Stanley Springer, had been a second grade teacher and made sure there were always plenty of books in the house. Books were a part of my life from a very early age.

One handed catch by mary jane auch