Debra Sartell

I was born and raised in Clarkston, Michigan, and moved to San Francisco, California after my first semester of college. What was supposed to be a six month adventure traveling around the country, turned into a permanent move to the Bay Area. Once I settled in, I began studying Theatre and Mime and became a member of the Haight Ashbury Theatre Workshop. My journal writing and poetry have remained constant over the years and turned into writing Children's picture books after receiving my first 35mm camera. Photographs became my inspiration and I began writing about the about the poetry in the pictures I took. The idea of combining words with my photographs was a blast!

TIME FOR BED, BABY TED is my first published book and it grew out of one of those frozen snapshot moments in parenting when one can only laugh while looking back on it. That’s what photographs do they allow us to look back on our moments with more than a fleeting emotion, they allow us depth and range of feeling. A past moment of parenting exhaustion, frozen in a snapshot, becomes comical when looking at it in the present.

My favorite job before coming a writer was booking stand-up comedy, producing theatre and casting films. I love comedy and love to laugh!