Maryel Henderson

As a child I was always fascinated by bugs.

A few years back I designed a piece of jewelry using a real stinkbug and submitted it to a juried Christmas event. Within a week it was on two major news channels and made front page of our York Dispatch newspaper. I became known as the Stinkbug Artist and sold my pieces of jewelry around the world. Shortly thereafter, as luck would have it, I fell 20 feet from the top of an apple tree and broke all 5 metatarsals in my right foot. Being non-weight bearing for 90 days, it seemed a good time to write and illustrate a book that had been rolling around inside my head. Thus "Squirt Saves the Day- A Stinkbug's Story" was born.

I love that children are fascinated by Squirt; that they seem to love him, and send me portraits that they have done of him. Mostly I love that Squirt inspires them to write and illustrate books of their own. I cannot speak for other authors/illustrators of children's books but as for me, this is why I write.