​Not long after I wrote my last post celebrating the 1 year anniversary of Cowgirls Don’t Ride Zebras, I was catapulted into two new worlds: Neverland and Oz. I’m only just now coming up for air, even while still in the midst of my travels to Oz.

In late January, I directed a production of Peter Pan Jr. for the Worthingway Arts Program in Worthington, OH. I worked with about 30 seventh and eighth graders to put on the show. That’s the cast and crew in the pic above. I’m ridiculously proud of what the students accomplished. And, yes, what I accomplished. Not just as a director, but as a teacher. And as a human. 

My book, Cowgirls Don’t Ride Zebras, celebrated its one year anniversary of being published in January. I didn’t get to celebrate with too much fanfare since I was preparing for rehearsals of Peter Pan Jr., which I’m directed for the Worthingway Arts Program. I look back at my journals and see the planning of the play version of Cowgirls Don’t Ride Zebras beginning to be created. It really is a situation of the chicken and the egg: which came first, the book or the play? 

​Cowgirls Don’t Ride Zebras began as an idea for a children’s book. You can read more about the evolution of the story of a baby duck to a book-loving girl named Penny here. My old journals have characters that were cut from the original version of the play: penguins and a giraffe. Cowgirls don’t ride penguins, they don’t want their tuxedos to get dirty. Cowgirls don’t ride giraffes, they’re too busy knitting scarves for winter. The giraffe existed somewhat to get a “winter is coming” joke in there, but also it’s ridiculous and funny to see a giraffe knitting a scarf worthy of the Fourth Doctor.