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I came from a family of incredible storytellers, but I didn't start writing children's books until I was 41 years old.

I come from a family of storytellers. Growing up, my father would make up these stories about how he and my mother met and fell in love, and my mother would tell me these elaborately visual stories of growing up as a kid in New York, and I was always so enrapt.

As a child, I was fortunate enough to be close to family members who were - and still are - great storytellers. I was a gullible country boy from Rocky Mount, Virginia, and I believed every folktale they told me, no matter how fantastic.

I was always a storyteller. I just didn't know it. I never shared the stories I made up inside my head when I was growing up. I never wrote them down, either. But I can't remember a time when they weren't there.

I always knew I was going to grow up to be a storyteller; that's one of the earliest things I remember about myself. There was never a question of me not writing.

I come from a family of great readers and storytellers.

I love storytelling so for me to get behind a story and get in there early in its infancy and kind of develop it in the early stages was something I really wanted to be a part of.

I have fond memories of my childhood. I spent five wonderful years on a popular TV show, but I didn't have a normal childhood. I was tutored for grades 4-11.

I grew up in a society with a very ancient and strong oral storytelling tradition. I was told stories, as a child, by my grandmother, and my father as well.

I'm one of these children who grew up at the knee of my grandmother and her elder sister, listening to very old people talk about their memories.