Tammy Carter Bronson began writing and illustrating stories in elementary school, but she met her first author, Richard Peck, in high school when she was selected to attend the 2nd Annual Northwest Arkansas Education Service Cooperative’s Writer’s Conference. The following year she met S. E. Hinton at the cooperative’s 3rd annual meeting, and the experience encouraged her to attend many more symposiums on writing including:

Michael Hauge’s Screenwriting for Hollywood (1995), OSU Tulsa’s Center for Poets & Writers’ CELEBRATION OF BOOKS (1997, 2002, 2006, 2008), Arkansas Society of Children’s Book Writer’s & Illustrators (SCBWI) Annual Conference (1998, 1999, 2002, 2009, 2010), Book Expo (2000), the Publisher’s Marketing Association PUBLISHER’S UNIVERSITY (2000), and the NC/NE Texas Chapter’s SCBWI Conference (2004).

She graduated from the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville where she took courses in creative writing and screenwriting with William N. Harrison [author of ROLLARBALL (a short story and screenplay) and THE BLOOD LATITUDES] and studied art history with Donald Harington (author of BUTTERFLY WEEK and THE COCKROACHES OF STAY MORE). She majored in both English and Anthropology. After graduation she worked at several museums (University of Arkansas Museum, Oklahoma Museum of Natural History, and the Siloam Springs Museum) as well as in libraries (Fayetteville Public Library and the University of Arkansas Mullins Library) and in a bookstore (B. Dalton formerly a division of Barnes & Noble) where she focused primarily on children’s books.

After meeting Darcy Pattison (picture book author of THE RIVER DRAGON) at the 1998 AR SCBWI conference, Tammy was inspired to create her first picture book, TINY SNAIL. She wrote, illustrated, and designed the book, but at that time publishers wanted to match their own artists with authors’ stories. After multiple rejections, Tammy opted to produce the book herself. Without even owning a computer, Tammy started her first company, Bookaroos Publishing, Inc. With the help of borrowed computers and software, Tammy produced and printed TINY SNAIL before attending the PUBLISHER’S UNIVERSITY in Chicago at BOOKEXPO (May 2000) where Tammy learned that she did everything wrong! The first printing of TINY SNAIL was in softcover instead of hardcover, and she failed to send the book out for reviews.

Tammy bought her first computer (2000), collaborated with her husband on her second book (THE KALEIDONOTES & THE MIXED-UP ORCHESTRA, 2001), and reissued TINY SNAIL in hardcover (2002). In 2001 Tammy launched a nationwide campaign that would encourage children to be better readers and stronger writers, and TINY SNAIL’s ‘attitude of gratitude’ and message of perseverance perfectly complimented Tammy’s goal. To date (March 2010) Tammy has visited over 480 elementary schools in 18 states, and although Tammy has three picture books now (including POLLIWOG, 2004) with combined sales quickly approaching 30,000 copies, she doesn’t measure her success by the number of books sold or in print. Tammy measures her success by the enormous amount of encouragement she has received from students and educators alike. Ten years later, TINY SNAIL endures, and over 220,000 children have heard TINY SNAIL’S message. Tammy perseveres as well, both as writer and artist, for them.