About Me

It's always difficult to introduce myself, and "What do you do?" is a hard question to answer. I do so many things! Now, I answer that I'm an author. But I'm also a librarian, a storyteller, a teacher, a wife, mother, grandmother, and someone who makes quilts.

I love writing and wrote my first poems and stories in elementary school. I remember a little of the first poem I wanted to share with the world. It was about someone coming down the stairs to find something horrible at the bottom. My first important poem was scary! And so is my first book, WHO TOOK MY HAIRY TOE?

When I make quilts I play with colors and the placement of fabrics. I know the traditional patterns and methods, but I rarely make anything by following someone else's pattern completely. I like adapting patterns or making up my own. I do the same thing when I write.

Quilting with Olivia.

I play with words and the placement of sentences and ideas. The fun part of writing, for me, is taking traditional rhythms and using them my own way to create something totally new. I also like to take a traditional story and tell it my way, or to make a whole story up from scratch.

I have been writing poetry for adults this way for many years and my poems have been published in several small press journals. I didn't start to buckle down and work on books for children until the fall of 1997. I sold my first manuscript by early December of 1999. Then five more of my picture book manuscripts sold in a little over a year! In the fall of 2001, I had an offer on my first children's novel. I was on my way to being a children's author.

I am sure that would not have happened without the deep love I had for my other career, that of being a children's librarian. I was a librarian for almost twenty-five years. In fact, in 2002, I won the Michigan Library Association Children's Services Award of Merit as youth librarian of the year.

Getting to read and share so many wonderful books in the Ann Arbor District Library where I worked has been an important part of my life. I wanted children to find my books on library shelves, too, one day. And now, they can!

Shutta's program details for teachers and libraries:

• www.kidsbooklink.org/crum.html

• Shutta's Teacher Brochure

• Shutta’s Speaker Brochure

• Shutta's Program Descriptions and Fees

Interviews with Shutta:

• Shutta on writing THE BRAVEST OF THE BRAVE

• Shutta on writing SPITTING IMAGE

• Shutta on writing WHO TOOK MY HAIRY TOE?

• Library Sparks interview, on writing and MY MOUNTAIN SONG

photo by paulthacker.com

Me in my favorite
giraffe bathing suit.