About Me
I write books and stories, and publishers pay me for them. Sometimes this still surprises me. I never intended to become a writer. Growing up in Lansdowne, Pennsylvania, I wanted to be a polar bear. That didn't work out, so I became a biologist. But after earning a bachelor's degree from the College of William and Mary and a master's degree from Dartmouth College, I discovered I was all thumbs in the lab. Laboratory research was definitely not in my future.
In my first "real" job, I discovered that a lot of people don't like to write. But I've always loved putting ideas on paper. Every job I've ever had became a writing job. When I worked as the quality control director at a vegetable cannery, I wrote everything from reports for the Food and Drug Administration to responses to customer complaints. When I worked as a teacher at a training school for nannies, who wrote the school newsletter? You guessed it. Me. Then I was asked to write a newspaper column about games and another one about parenting. Finally, I just gave up and became a full-time professional writer. Over the past thirty years, I have written everything from restaurant reviews to true-life stories to mysteries, popular health and science books and even textbooks.
To date, I have published 18 books. My most popular book The Vaccine Debate explains the science behind vaccines, how they work, and why they are controversial. Writing this book gave me a chance to share my fascination with human biology in non-technical language high school students and adults can understand. Vaccines: History, Science, and Issues resulted in an interview on NHK TV, Japan’s public broadcasting system. I’ve also written books on hormones, diabetes, and one of my favorites, Medical Firsts that Changed the World. My most recent book, From War Room to Living Room: Innovations from the Military (Bloomsbury 2024) was written with my husband, Scott Davidson—and no, we didn’t argue, although there were a few vigorous discussions. My current project is a book on cognitive biases.
Ten of my books are nonfiction books for young people. Two of them, Prejudice and Facing Competition (both published by Scholastic) were selected as California Reader Notable Books. The book I most enjoyed researching was African American Scientists and Inventors (Mason Crest). A close second in terms of interesting research was Global Trade in the Ancient World (Mason Crest).
I also write fiction and creative nonfiction that has been published by Harlequin, Adams Media, Scribe's Press and in the California Writers Literary Review. In my non-writing time, I, cook, garden, and read and occasionally travel
Want to learn more about me? Read my interview with David Alan Binder