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Betsy grew up reading historical fiction in a gray-shingled 1830s house and it’s still her favorite genre. Lazing on her bed with a book, she ate penny candy from a paper bag and lost herself in another time.
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Today, she strives to create stories that pull kids into the past in the same magical and transportive way. She primarily writes picture books but has the start of a historical middle grade story she dreams of completing one day. In addition to nonfiction projects, she writes lyrical stories about scooters, errands, and friendship.
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Betsy holds degrees in Archives Management and U.S. History from Simmons University. Before attending Simmons, she spent two years studying Medieval History at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.
After Simmons, she spent five years as library director at the Nantucket Historical Association on Nantucket Island, her all-time favorite job.
She happily tumbles down the rabbit hole of research and even has her own collection of 18th and 19th-century manuscripts.
​She has two children who won’t tour historic houses with her and a husband who will.
She lives in the Boston area.
Betsy and her brother take in the delights of Nantucket in 1979.
Proud Member of
Wins & Awards
2024 SpringFling Contest
Category: LOL
Title: Easter Egg Revenge
Honorable Mention
2023 KidLit Fall
Frenzy Contest
Title: Chrysalis & Crumbs
Winner
2021 Boston Author's Club
Discovery Award
Category: Picture Book (NF)
Title: Michelson's Shoes
3rd Place Winner
2020 389 Literary
Pop-up Agency
Title: Ice to India
Award Winner!
Favorite Things
Favorite Books
​Old houses
Anything handwritten
Sitting under a beach umbrella with a
good book
The Irish countryside (& the English
countryside and the Scottish countryside)
Doves cooing on her back deck
Dark chocolate and Cadbury’s Dairy Milk
Her thirty-year-old wicker bike basket
Hamsters (departed: Pumpkin, Teddy,
Cece, Aoife, Bruno, Julius; living: Max)
Her daughter's art
Stripes
Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown, by Maud Hart Lovelace
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, by Betty Smith
The Witch at Blackbird Pond, by Elizabeth George Speare
The Dark is Rising, by Susan Cooper
The Midwife's Apprentice, by Karen Cushman
The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, by Jacqueline Kelly
Turtle in Paradise, by Jennifer L. Holm
Front Desk, by Kelly Yang
Sophie's Squash, by Pat Zietlow Miller & Anne Wilsdorf
A Fine Dessert, by Emily Jenkins & Sophie Blackall
The Right Word, by Jen Bryant & Melissa Sweet
Otis and Will Discover the Deep, by Barb Rosenstock & Katherine Roy
The Great Stink, by Colleen Paeff & Nancy Carpenter
Swashby and the Sea, by Beth Ferry & Juana Martinez- Neal
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