That's Cornelia

It is not an easy thing to describe oneself. I think my friends and even my readers would be much better at that. But ....as you probably came to this website to know more about me or my books, I will try:

I was born on the 10th of December, 1958 in a small town in Germany, in Westfalia to be exact, between cow meadows, old mines, factory chimneys on the horizon and ...quite a few water castles. My parents called me Cornelia Maria and I was the oldest of their four children. The youngest, Insa, is the Captain of this website.

I wanted to be an astronaut since I watched the first moonlanding – and after I had watched many many episodes of StarTrek. I believe that maybe I became a storyteller because every evening I had to invent new StarTrek episodes for my brother as streaming and downloads had not yet been invented. No, DVDs neither. And I think my 14 years younger sister Insa is to be blamed for the fact that I always loved the company of children and it was therefore no surprise that I became a children’s book writer.

But first I was a social worker and all the wild children I met taught me what kinds of books I should write: books for those who like me loved to read, but also for those, who usually don’t. It still makes me very happy, that my books are often loved by readers who usually don’t like books.

When I was a social worker I constantly drew and painted with the children I worked with or told them stories – which taught me that we probably can’t ignore the talents we were born with. So I studied book illustration additionally and one day, when I once again didn’t like a story I had to illustrate for a publisher I decided to write my own stories. You see? We best find out what we are supposed to do on crooked ways that teach us many things.

Don’t let grown ups tell you it will be a straight road. In my experience that is not true — and would be very boring.

I have by now written and illustrated mostly childrens’ books for more than 34 years (I know – you probably cannot even imagine to ever be that old!) I still love it as much as when I began, maybe even more. And I love to hear from my readers which luckily thanks to this website and social media and zoom events is much easier nowadays than when I dreamt of being an astronaut.

So ... ...I hope I will meet many of you before I drop my pencil. And I hope I will write a few more stories that you love.

With very best wishes,

Cornelia